


Caged Phoenix

by Tangerine_Catnip



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Bloodplay, Collars, Drowning, Drug-Induced Sex, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Kidnapping, Knives, Master/Pet, Oviposition, Physical Abuse, Psychological Horror, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recreational Drug Use, Scars, Self-Hatred, Sexual Slavery, Stockholm Syndrome, Strangulation, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:07:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9283763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine_Catnip/pseuds/Tangerine_Catnip
Summary: Angel is dead and the Warrior is destroyed, but Handsome Jack still has one ace up his sleeve. The most powerful siren left on Pandora is still under his control and with a bit of care, lots of training, and judiciously administered punishments; he’s planning to turn his most dearly hated enemy into a loyal servant.





	1. Ammunition

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter was originally a co-written effort between myself and my dear friend [Lovova](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovova) she’s declined co-author credit since this isn’t her usual fandom and because further chapters will be a solo effort on my part. I loved this idea too much to let it end here so…  
> Please read the chapter tags for content warnings.

Lilith woke with a start, sitting bolt upright on her cot. The sound of the gunshot that had ended her nightmare died away as her brain came to grips with the fact it was only a dream.

She looked down at herself. Imagining she could still see the pattern of blood that had streaked her clothing when Roland's chest had erupted.

She had suffered the same nightmare nearly every night since she was captured. Jack shooting her boyfriend in the back. The spluttering sound he made before hitting the ground. His eyes rolling back in his head as he died in front of her.

Every night she lived through it, and each time she was helpless to stop it from happening. A single moment of weakness and it had cost her everything. First, the man she loved. Then, seconds later, her freedom

Her neck hurt. But that wasn't unusual. The collar around her throat was perfectly designed so that it always pinched or chaffed. Reminding her of its presence every second she was awake. As a fun bonus, it also glowed, making it hard to sleep even when she was allowed to.

Lilith didn't want to get out of bed; the mattress was thin and uncomfortable, but her body heat at least kept it warm.

Feeling as though she were moving against her will, Lilith rolled over and pulled herself to her feet. The punishment wasn't worth it. She had to pick where she drew her lines. Find the right hills to die on. It had taken far too long for her to learn that lesson and it had cost her deeply.

Her cell was about three meters across and contained a small bed, a toilet, a shower, and a table that folded down from the wall. Neither of the bathroom facilities offered any privacy and were in full view of the security camera mounted on the wall of her cell and through the slots between the bars that made up the north wall.

Lilith pulled her clothing off (If you could even still call her shredded vest and cargo pants clothing) and turned on the water. It was cold and tasted like metal and chlorine. Water that had cycled through Helios hundreds of times.

It was almost as bad as the re-oxygenated air that chapped her lips, or the cloned food that had about a fourth of the taste of their natural counterparts. What she wouldn't give for a single wild drake-fruit after months of Hyperion regulation tomatoes.

More than anything, though, Lilith missed the sunshine, the dirt, and the fresh air filling her lungs.

On Pandora, Lilith had once put off taking a bath for three months, and no one had ever complained. Everything was covered with a thin layer of dust and sweat, and that was just the way everyone liked it.

But she wasn't on Pandora anymore, and if she didn't scrub herself with sanitized water every morning, one of her robot wardens would report the breach of protocol to Handsome Jack.

Lilith caught her eye in one of the mirrored shower walls. They were nice decorative features, very out of place in the sparse cell. Lilith had wondered at the inclusion until she noticed the growing number of scars building upon her body.

Once they had all been from battle, but now they were vastly outnumbered by the remnants of various punishments. To the point where she couldn't remember what scar came from when and they all became reminders of her imprisonment.

Every morning she had to look at them. To remember all she had been through and what would happen if she failed to finish her prescribed morning routine.

Her right thigh had it worst. The arrogant bastard had carved his name into it. Letter by letter, over and over, until scar tissue formed.

Even if her friends weren't dead, even if she was rescued, even if she killed Jack with her bare hands; She would still have that scar.

Lilith turned the water off and waited as the fans turned on and air-dried her body. She got dressed and quickly ate the small meal a loader bot had left on her table. Dry toast with vitamin paste spread on top of it.

The very last item on her to-do list was always the hardest. She walked to the center of her cell and lowered herself down onto the cold metal floor. She sat with her back straight and her eyes down, trying to think of anything besides what she was doing and who she was doing it for.

If past Lilith could only see her now, she would be disgusted. She would have died before willingly bending her knees to Jack. But what she didn't understand was that death wasn't exactly an option her present-self had. There was no easy way out of this above ground or below it. Not while she was still useful. Not while she still had her siren powers.

Menwhile a just a few hallways away from her, Handsome Jack (so aptly named because of his Great Beauty and Awe Inspiring Wisdom and Justly Earned Absolute Power Over All)((And also named because that was the title he chose for himself, as he wasn't going to wait for one of these mass idiots beneath him to think of an appropriate title for him, come on now, honestly)) was walking down the metal staircase, enjoying the 'tap, tap, tap' of his designer shoes made from the finest (and rarest. Jack was wearing the last of them, since he had paid good money to make it so) Red Panda leather tennis shoes, expertly tarnished just enough to make them appear to be your average schmucks laced shoes.

Because there was nothing as classy as being rich enough to spend thousands of dollars to look just the right type of poor.

He was smiling, grinning and whistling and humming on his way down to the special prisoner's block, a bounce in his step, just utterly thrilled with the morning's progression. It was a normal day for Jack, but then, Jack had worked hard his whole life to make sure that his normal days were always epic.

He turned the corner and saw her kneeling through the bars of her cell, eyes trained on the ground, just the picture of brutalized loveliness, he took pleasure in knowing he had succeeded.

"Awwww, look at you, my sweet bird! My caged beauty! What is this?" Jack said, looking around the room in open wonder, "Wow! Look at that! Everything's clean, everything's in its place, and as far as been reported to me, you finally, finally, performed all your tasks right! Good job, kitten!"

Jack took a knee in front of her, reaching through the bars to run a finger down her cheek, "See, now was that so hard? Honestly, who would have thought teaching a bandit to act like a civilized, decent person would be so difficult? But I'm the kind of saint ready and willing to do it, peanut. The Hero ready and willing, really. So..."

He stood back up, folding his arms over his chest, still grinning, but a sternness coming over him as he stood well above her.

"What do we say?"

Lilith looked back at him. She was almost unable to hear him over the pounding of blood in her ears. Her rage burned like a flame inside her chest whenever she had the misfortune to be in his presence, but each morning the fire got little cooler and quieter. She didn't want to think about what would happen if it ever went out completely.

Lilith's tongue felt like it was coated in cotton, soaking up all the saliva and making it imposable to speak. But she had already done everything else, resisting now would be pointless.

"Good morning Ma-"

Fire leaped up Lilith's throat, boiling hot rage choking down the last word. She looked up at him screaming curse words to herself inside her head. Calling him every nasty thing she had ever learned on Pandora. She knew she was selling her soul to the devil in tiny little chunks and that she was quickly running out of pieces. Her fingers curled into fists, and she forced the word out.

"Master."

Her whole body trembled slightly, but she managed to keep the anger off her face.

"Heh. Cute."

Handsome Jack grinned. He leaned one arm against the bars, lazily taking another look around the cell. He then glanced back down at her, "You rushed through your hair this morning, though, didn't you kidd-" he stopped, catching himself. Gave himself half a second to readjust, "hrn. Rushed through your hair. It's still a bit tangled in the back. I always did wonder how you bandits kept your hair so well done out in the wilderness, fighting beasts in the dirt. No reason to let up now that you live comfortably in a nice, indoor environment. Be a dear and go fetch your brush for me, sweet bird."

He straightened out his watch, adding in smoothly, "And be sure to fetch it the right way. One that fits your... stature." He laughed, "You know what I mean."

Lilith's knees and legs hurt from holding her posture and in her rush to take the excuse to move she almost stood up. She bit her lip hard and lowered herself back down to the floor. She still couldn't believe he enjoyed making her do things like this. Then again, he knew how much she hated it. So, maybe she could.

Taking a deep breath, Lilith shifted onto her hands and knees and started making her away across the floor over to the small table near her bed.

Jack casually leaned over and touched the button that lifted the metal bars into the ceiling. The buttons were locked to his fingerprints, and only he has the access requirements.

Jack enjoyed watching Lilith move quickly to the other side of the room, her pretty little backside swinging in the air as she hurried.

Lilith found the brush waiting for her. A single piece of Hyperion yellow plastic with synthetic bristles. She pulled herself up just enough to grab the handle in her teeth.

Making her way back to Jack was worse because she had to look at him as she crawled across the floor. Lilith imagined taking the brush into her hand and hurling it at his face. It was a nice thought, enough to distract her until she was back by the bars.

Jack thoroughly enjoyed the edge of barely concealed rage in her eyes as she came back with the brush in her mouth, the tenseness in her every movement as if she might spring into action at any second. But Jack didn't think she would. Maybe a week or so ago she might have, but now...

He really was just a very good teacher.

Lilith pulled herself up onto her knees in front of Jack, like a dog offering a stick to its master.

Jack ran his hand through his hair, looked down at her kneeling position, and suddenly burst into laughter. It was too fucking funny.

"Why did you carry it around in your mouth?" He asked, filling his tone with blatant disbelief. He knew why she had done it, of course; all his training up to this point was trying to drill into her head that she needed to act like an animal (because it was easier that way. A lot easier. Because if she acted any other way, a different face in a difference cage might start relentlessly coming back to him. Much easier.), and not using her hands was a part of that. But this was the first time she had done the mouth thing, and honestly, he loved the idea that he didn't have to tell her to do it. Which made it her idea. Which implied she was the pervert.

Which was fucking hilarious.

"Seriously, kitten, what the fuck? Didn't it taste bad? I imagine it tastes like...well, fuck, I can't even imagine was it tasted like! I've never fucking bitten a brush before!" He laughed loudly, finally pushing a button next to the cell door, causing the bars to rise up, still chuckling as he leaned his hand over to hover below her face, "You are such a freak, but whatever, I'll play along! From now on, you can just go ahead and grab, well, everything, with your teeth. But only because you really wanted it, sweet bird. Now...drop it." he said, his tone playful. Patronizing.

Lilith was lucky her mouth was full because she almost failed to hold back her response. How the fuck else was she supposed to transport something without using her hands? It was stick shaped, it only made sense!

It was just plastic anyway. Plastic inside this overly sanitized nightmare no less. Lilith dropped the brush, and it clattered to the floor.

"It tastes much better than your dick," Lilith spat. Her heart skipping a beat when she realized she had said that out loud instead of just thinking it. A cold chill of fear spread through her, but before it grasped full hold, a second comment slipped out.

"Thanks for the permission through, next time it's in there I'll 'grab' that with my teeth."

Lilith wanted to smile and enjoy the zinger, but it was only bittersweet at best.

Jack looked at the brush on the ground and sighed. "You were so close, cupcake." He told her, "It was just gonna be a nice, relaxing day. You ever had a nice, relaxing day, sweetheart? I imagine bandits don't get a lot of them. Maybe that's why I can't train you with the carrot. After all, how can you learn to chase the carrot when you don't know what it tastes like."

From his Italian Leather coat, (made from real Italians. One of his accountants gave him some false numbers once to hide a mistake they had made. Jack couldn't even remember what the guy's name was now. Only that he had loved his accent.) Jack pulled out a beautifully crafted switchblade.

"I really wanted to show you what carrot tasted like, bab-" Another mental skip, another second to readjust. "-bunny, bunny...doll. Bunny doll? For carrots. You get my point." Jack finally said, deciding to skip the monolog and start carving.

He grabbed her collar and, using the easy grip of it, hopped on top of her and pulled her onto her back. He straddled her hips, looking down at the spots of her chest which weren't covered by her top, looking for space between the crisscrossing scars before deciding to just draw over all of it, starting from just below her collarbone. He pushed in the blade and pulled down, saying as he went, "Maybe if you knew what a carrot looked like, that would help you understand all that you have to gain, darling! We'll make this one _deep_ , too. You're gonna know what a carrot fucking looks like by the end of this one, sweet bird!"

Lilith knew what was coming, but it didn't help. She writhed underneath him, trying to shove him off. But Jack was an expert at close combat. Which she had never needed to practice because she could usually just light anyone who got too close on fire.

As soon as the knife touched her skin, Lilith went limp. She knew from experience that she would only hurt herself more by running up against the knife. She closed her eyes and bit down on her tongue to muffled her cries of pain.

Her hips bucked up against him as the shocks of pain ran through her. Her feet kicking and dragging against the floor as they were the only part that wouldn't drive the knife further in.

Her eyes began to water as the blood flowed down her chest and soaked into her bra. She tried to hold her breath since the movement made it hurt more.

"ahh-ahhhhhh!"

Lilith's hold on her lip failed and she cried out, it echoed around the room and came back louder echoing in her ears.

"Shhh, shhh, yeah, there we go." Jack hummed, enjoying the sensation of her moving up against him as he carefully drew out the image of a carrot around her chest. He took special attention to the details too. He gave the leaves little veins and put ridges on the carrots body. In truth, this lasted no longer than ten minutes, oh, but to hear her howl. Pulling back the blade, he wiped some of the blood away with her long-ruined shirt, admiring the image. "Not bad. Not bad at all."

Getting off of her, he put his knife away before, deciding it was safe, he took her up into his arms, cradling her to his magnificent chest as he brought her to the small mirror in her cell above her sink, "See, cupcake? Take a look. That's what a carrot looks like. Only with a lot less blood and pain. Isn't that nice?"

Looking into the mirror with her, he took a moment to enjoy the image. The Siren seemed a lot smaller, a lot less imposing when she was curled up and spasming from pain and fear. Adorable, really. Like a lost little g-

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Jack closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again, scowling slightly. "Your hair though? Honestly honey, that little wrestling match didn't help with that situation. So..." He put her down on the floor, gently, "Go get me that brush, sweet-pea."

Lilith sobbed quietly as she tried to pull herself back under control. She took long deep breaths until the worse of the shaking had subsided. She rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hands, but there was nothing to be done about her bloodstained chest.

Somehow, the fact he had marked her skin with his shitty little drawing seemed far worse than the pain. Before her capture, Lilith had just begun to feel comfortable in her skin after years of being teased over the tattoos she was born with, and now she wished she could rip it off and set in on fire.

She didn't have to go far for the brush, fortunately since Lilith felt like she was going to collapse. She brought it back in her mouth, half falling against Jack when she tried to give it to him.

Jack took her in with a half hug, one hand holding brush and the other rubbing her arm affectionately, "Oooh, good girl, my good girl! Come here, come here," He said, neverminding the still pooling blood on her chest as he brought her into his lap, moving her hair out of her face as he said encouragingly, "Now, just relax, kitten. That's what the carrot looked like, but this is what a carrot feels like...metaphorically."

He began to brush through her hair as gently as he could, teasing out knots and matting till the brush went through smoothly. The whole of his body surrounded her frame as he worked, easily, leisurely, rambling all the time, "I say metaphorically because I'm not sure if you've ever actually eaten a carrot in Pandora, God knows the vegetable growth down there is almost nothing, so you might not know there actually like...well, their like little hard dicks, and pointy too. Would make great dildos if you curved their edges, I guess, but being a guy, I might just be talking out of my ass here. Who knows what actually makes a good dildo for the ladies. Someone once made a joke about bicycle tops being used as one, and I remember thinking, 'Man, that would rip your insides apart! What the fuck!? Hell no!'" He laughed, long and loud, just enjoying the feeling of her in his arms and the sound of his own voice.

Lilith couldn't pretend it didn't feel good. A soft tingling spread through her body, especially around the back of her neck. No one had brushed her hair since she was a little girl. But Jack being the one to do it poisoned it, making her feel sick to her stomach.

It didn't feel as bad as she wanted it to, though, at least when he hurt her she could be in that sensation fully and honestly. This was just wrong, so very wrong.

She closed her eyes as he talked. If she were forced to say a nice thing about Jack, it probably would have been his voice. It was nice, even if the things he said in it was either bullshit or threats. It faded into background noise. It was nice being warm again. Given how evil he was, Jack should have been cold as a snake, but somehow, he was warm…

Once Jack was done, he looked down, grading his own work. Not bad. Not bad at all. "Nice." He said petting her hair gently, "You look more and more like yourself every day, sweetheart."

Lilith felt like she was waking up from a trance once he stopped. The pain in her chest returned, and the fog faded away.

With one finger, Jack gently pulled her head up by her chin, looking into those beautiful, sharp eyes, "That felt alright, right? Now...Give da-" Fuuuuuck. Readjust. "-give me a kiss, pretty bird. And I'll give you something even nicer than a carrot. I promise."

Lilith blinked up into his eyes. If she hadn't known him before the mask, she would have thought his mismatched green and blue eyes were fake. They didn't suit him. They were a way too gorgeous to waste.

She listened to his request. She could feel some ghost of herself screaming in the back of her mind 'hell no!' but the Lilith that was here now was bruised, beaten, bloody, and desperate for anything else.

She leaned in. Feeling a like she was standing out and away from her body while some complexly different entity was piloting it. She forced herself not to think about the mask. If she closed her eyes, it felt fine, like it wasn't even there.

High on Lilith's list of regrets was the fact she hadn't made out with more guys. She was a smoking hot siren. Yet, somehow, Jack had the honor of being the second man she had ever kissed. The blood loss and adrenaline must have gotten to her, because as they kissed, Lilith felt a warm tingling feeling between her thighs.

She pulled away. So disguised with herself she wanted to slam her head against the nearest wall.

Handsome Jack chuckled to himself at the flush of red that came over his 'pretty bird', a thousand little tells showing that he was getting through to her. He thought about playing with her some more, maybe drawing back as a tease, but he had a feeling that if he gave Lilith too much time to think about this, she'd fight back just for the sake of her pride, (or at least start thinking about that idiot Roland, which would be a buzzkill. Jack hated when girls started talking about their old boyfriends in bed. Rude!) so yeah, better to push forward. Try to keep her flustered.

"Hey, Hey," He whispered, turning his voice low, sultry, as she started to pull away from her. He gently brought her back, leaning his head down till he had her attention again. Those eyes... "Look at those eyes... that beautiful, golden color. You're a sunrise, you know that, right? A sunrise leading to a beautiful day," he whispered, his hands trailing down her front, carefully avoiding the wound, his fingers gently pressing down on her skin, moving past her belly button, lower. He made massaging, circular presses on the skin just above her pelvis, feeling its soft give, feeling the heat radiating off her. "You were wasted, living on Pandora, when you could have been a Goddess anywhere else in the galaxy. Men and women would have been tripping all over themselves to give you everything you ever desired. You would never have wanted for anything."

He kissed her cheek. Kissed it again. "It can still be like that for you. I know the last month has been...hard. But you have to understand, you were -very- difficult. If I had given you lovely dresses, you would have turned them into nooses and tried to kill me. If I had given you access to privacy, you would have clawed at the walls till the concrete started to chisel away, or your bones did. If I had given you medicine, you would have poisoned yourself to death. Don't you understand?"

He moved his hand down, past the barrier of her cargo pants, rubbing three fingers gently up and down.

"Tell me you understand, sweet bird."

This was familiar. Lilith knew that Jack had never treated her like this, but it felt familiar. She searched her memory, but it was hard to concentrate with Jack's hands running over her body.

Then it clicked. Angel. This was how he had talked to Angel. As if she was still a little girl who needed him to hold her hand. Or in Lilith's case, a dumb animal who needed to be kept on a short leash.

He was trying to use the tricks that had worked on Angel. Play the generous benefactor, guilt her into believing he was just doing what was best for her.

Even though she could see right through it. Lilith had to wonder how long that clarity could last. After all, even at her worst Angel had had it better than she did right now. Trapped and isolated, but well cared for.

If this was going to be her life now no matter what she did, why make it more painful?

Lilith shivered when his fingers stopped on her lower tummy. She waited for the disgust and nausea, but they couldn't overtake the faint ache and the spreading heat.

Lilith had always had a high sex drive that was maddeningly incompatible with her lack of seduction skills. Once or twice she had even contemplated bending over and seeing if a skag would take any interest, just to release some of the tension.

This prospect was easily a hundred times worse.

"Y-yes I do…"

"Good.' Jack thought, 'Perfect.' For a moment, he had worried he had pushed too hard by needing vocal confirmation, but the Siren was actually coming along quicker in this session than he had dared hope for. It was probably just plain old exhaustion finally getting the better of her. Keep pushing Jack. Once the first time was done, it would all be downhill walking from here!

He had beautiful visions for her future with him. Beautiful, willing, dangerous, powerful. And he would never have to hold back on her, not really. She would be far more effective than-

Hrk.

Readjust.

She...the situation...it was nothing alike. NOTHING. ALIKE.

Jack closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, focused. She really was beautiful. His beautiful Siren.

He, gently, lowered her down from his lap, putting her on her back, his hands moving up and down the slits between her legs all the while as he pulled up her shirt over her bra, leaning over her and kissing her stomach, her ribs. He got to her breasts and, moving the bra cup away to expose small, round breasts.

The blood on Lilith's chest had mostly dried now. It felt nice to be partly out of her bra, but better to be receiving all the attention. It didn't seem possible that the fingers that had once closed around her windpipe tight enough to block her air flow could also touch her so gently.

Jack bent over her chest and closed his teeth around one of her nipples. Taking two of his fingers, he inserted himself into her, rearranging the fluid that was flowing from her to slick the walls of her hole. With his one free hand, he had a firm grasp of her collar, tugging at it a bit. He knew it would bite at her neck, but it was important that if she tried anything at this point, he could immediately cut off her airway.

Pulling back from her chest, Jack said, low, husky, "How's that, pretty bird. How does that feel? You wanna take these clothes off for me, sweetheart? Help out ol' Jack here?"

Lilith moaned out loud when his fingers entered her. He was using the same hand that had been holding the pistol that killed Roland. Lilith rocked her hips, her breath hitching as his fingers slid in deeper.

Warm tears traveled down her cheeks; a wellspring she couldn't keep a lid on anymore.

"It feels good…"

Her voice almost sounded robotic. Her emotions too volatile for any of them to come through.

Lilith started with her pants. She unzipped the front and slid them down her hips.

She could feel how wet she had gotten, but seeing it made the reality hit twice as hard. Her body was more that prepared to take Handsome Jack's cock. The man who had taken everything from her had his fingers inside her, and she wanted more.

Her bra and shirt came next. Jack's painful grip on her collar meant she couldn't get her tube top over her head, so she wiggled it down over her hips. She pulled away from Jack's hand so his fingers slid out of her and she could finally get it all the way off.

Finally, her well-worn bra came off over her shoulders. Leaving her completely naked with only her siren tattoos and scars.

Lilith was breathing deeply. Arousal, fear, desperation, and disgust, at war in her head. On Pandora, she had fought monsters the size of houses but stripped of her siren powers she was but a weak, defenseless bird with a cruel master.

This was her last chance to back out. To prove there was still a shred of the old Lilith in her. One of Lilith's hands strayed between her legs, seemingly moving of its own accorded without her input. She pressed her fingertips against her clit. Letting out another moan as she met Jack's eyes, Lilith realized she was much too far gone.

She sniffed, her cheeks fully stained with tears at this point. Moving slowly so Jack wouldn't think she was trying to resist, she rolled back onto her front and got on her knees again.

"H-hurt me, please? Make it rough."

Lilith could only imagine how she looked from his point of view, holding her backside in the air for him with slick coating her thighs. Literally begging him to fuck her.

But Lilith knew she couldn't live with herself if everything about what was about to happen were enjoyable. She needed to make this feel as different as possible, so the memory of Roland's touch was never confused with Jack's.

If she wanted the deranged psychopath to fuck her, she deserved all of it. Including whatever torture, he considered rough sex.

Jack didn't say anything to this. He observed her quietly, his mind racing, a small smirk on his face. He put his hands on her lower back, against the heart shape of her ass, and slid his hand upwards, feeling along the ridge of her back, rough and edged by too many scars to count, with those elegant, precise tattoos still stretching around her.

Jack had never made any real effort to avoid her tattoos, but it still seemed the skin around them was far less scared than the rest of her body, even in areas where it was clear the cut had gone from one end of the tattoo to the other. Maybe a shadow of her healing powers, still protecting her even now so thoroughly dulled? Who knew? Who cared?

His hand never left her collar as he guided her front side down, moving on his knees behind her and pressing the front of his body over her back so that he back arched into him. Every movement was slow. Every touch gentle. He kissed her shoulder blades, where wings might have arch-hrn...

...hrn...

With his free hand, he undid his belt and pulled his pants down, just enough to free his cock, which stood up straight, wanting, aching.

He kissed her shoulder blades. Where great fire-red wings usually sprouted. Then he kissed the spot between and down the rib of her spine. His legs moved around so that they pressed down on hers, holding her in place, but he kept his balance forward, so as not to put so much pressure as to hurt her. She was thin, so small, like this. Delicate. Like a bird. Some...precious winged creature. No particular name came to mind. Like a Siren! Yes. His Siren.

He pulled at her collar, slightly, her neck going up, her shoulders staying down, the arch of her back now perfect, completely exposing her slits to him.

"Now why " he said, placing his free hand on her lower back, "would I ever hurt my...?"

He didn't say it. He didn't say it.

But for just a moment, he saw a flash of black hair, of gorgeous blue eyes. He felt it.

"...Siren?"

He slid in. There was virtually no resistance. Her body swallowed him whole.

Lilith should have known. She really should have known. The bastard couldn't even be violent if someone wanted him to be.

He filled her up. It was good, way too good. She was truly lost now. Lilith could never take this back.

Maybe she could egg him on. She couldn't make herself stop, but she could still press his buttons. She had been putting some pieces together little by little as she observed jack's behavior. What had started as a thought had become a hunch and then a theory.

She had been too cowardly to test the theory before now. But at this point, she really had Nothing left to lose.

Lilith moaned loudly the let out two breathy words. Speaking softer and higher than normal, mimicking the voice that had welcomed her to Pandora yeas ago.

"More, Daddy…"

Jack was riding her, basking in the heat radiating off of her, the softness of her skin, the little noises and huffs of breath as she felt and embraced him. He planned to make her cry out in pleasure, to call out his name, to make her toes curl and her eyes roll. He was going to give her everything she had ever deserved, make her the happiest a woman can be, and it was all thanks to him...

"Daddy... please?"

For a moment, he wasn't even sure if the words had come from inside or outside of him. He stopped mid-thrust, at first stunned at himself, horrified. Had he really just allowed himself to think...

Then he realized he hadn't. Thank God, he hadn't. He...

...

THAT BITCH.

He turned her around in one quick motion, placing her on her back. Her. Lilith. The bandit BITCH. That was all she was! That was who she was! Lilith! "What the fuck!?" He said, grabbing the collar and twisting it, cutting off her oxygen, "What the FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY!?"

Lilith stared up into his rage filled eyes and realized with a thrill that he might just kill her for this.

She had found a weakness, one she was perfectly placed to exploit at this moment. Tensions running high and the distraction of sex might finally break his self-control and end her life of imprisonment early.

Like she had said herself; 'Better dead than a damsel.'

"Knew it… sick fuck… you wanted to do this with your own daughter."

Lilith had to pick her words. Since she could only take shallow, painful breaths in.

"I'm replacing her… no need to hold back... Right?"

Jack glowered at her. How dare she. How DARE SHE!?

He closed his eyes. He opened them. He closed them. He opened them. The rage was there, hot and burning and ready to consume them both alive.

But if Jack was capable of anything, it was thinking through the haze of rage. He had been basically doing it his whole life. He grinned at her. He hoped that his grin expressed everything he wanted to say.

Bending down, he found his way back into her vagina, sliding in and pumping. Maybe not as lovingly as before, but not overly hard. A good, solid stream of thumps. He put his face next to hers, whispering into her ear,

"You're right. You're right. No reason to hold back. Why hold back on a piece of trash like you. You know, ...I bet what's his name never did. The black one, very assertive. What was his name again? Fuck if I can remember."

He lifted up her hips, bringing her onto his thighs, increasing the rhythm of his thrusting, all the while carrying on as if he were having a normal conversation with her, "A bandit like him, all guts and bravado. I bet he threw you around in the bedroom. I bet he pushed you against the ground like this or threw you up against the wall like THIS-" still inside her, he lifted her up and practically ran into the wall, throwing her against it, slamming her into it with every thrust, "and you LOVED IT, just like your LOVING IT NOW, you SLUT!"

The breath was knocked right out of Lilith's lungs when she hit the wall. Her head slammed against the metal and her vision blacked out for a second.

Every thrust brought a mix of pain and pleasure. He was fucking her raw, and she could feel the aftershocks it all the way up in her stomach. He was trying to use Roland against her, but there was nothing he could say that she hadn't already said to herself.

She was having sex with his murderer, and she deserved to die for it.

"Yes, I love it you fucking Bastard. I can take it, I'm a siren! The most powerful siren in the galaxy!"

Lilith had wondered if she would ever Believe those words again, but at the moment, she felt them with every inch of her body. His collar may have repressed her powers, but it couldn't take them away.

To her shock, Lilith felt a rush a pleasure that pushed her precariously close to climaxing. She wasn't sure if she should hope that Jack would finish her off before or after she came.

"Oh, the most powerful Siren in the galaxy!? The most powerful Siren in the galaxy!?" Jack spat.

He moved quickly, not even really thinking about where he was going, heading towards the metal line the marked the place on the floor where the cell bars rose and dropped. He threw her to the ground, her chest on the metal line.

Standing back up after dropping her, his erection still hard and weeping, he snarled, "The best siren this galaxy has ever seen...the most powerful being this world has ever come across...is DEAD because of you. Not because you were better, or more powerful! But because you took ADVANTAGE of a little girls DEPRESSION! She was a TEENAGER, FOR FUCKS SAKE! She would have GROWN OUT OF IT!"

Jack went over to the button that would close the cell, staring blankly at the wall for a minute, his eyes lost in miserable memories.

"If she had just had more time...she would have understood that I really had given her everything... She would have understood." Snapping out of it, he turned back to Lilith and glared, "You took that time away from her."

He pressed the button.

Lilith didn't feel the impact. One moment she was in pain, and the next, agony was the only thing she knew.

The bar pierced her lung but missed her heart. Leaving her alive and choking on her own blood.

It flowed from her mouth and poured down her cheek. The bar itself held back a gush of blood from her chest, but there was more than enough leaking to pool around her.

Lilith twitched madly as she gasped and sputtered, every breath brought so much pain that her brain was starting to black it out. She wanted death so badly, but it hovered out of reach. She couldn't stop breathing, even though each movement of her chest was torture.

Jack stood back and watched for a moment, looking only mildly frustrated now. "What? Nothing to say about that? No snarky remarks? Sarcastic backtalk? I'm all ears, pretty bird!"

He walked over to her, watching her twitch and spasm, "No? You sure? How about this, sweet pea? Why don't we just go ahead," Jack fell to his knees, bringing up Lilith's hips, Jack enjoying her wide eyes, those small, choking sounds as he pleasured himself with his hands first, getting full again, "yeah, let's just go ahead and finish this. And after you've healed up; You and I are gonna have a long... long talk."

He thrust into her, again, again. His groin grew warm and tense, and he listened to her sounds and watched her struggle. Oooooh... good. Good. Fucking a dying person.

Perhaps a fetish to explore with her more in the future?

He kept going, his face flushed, low groans emitting out through his huffing and puffing, getting ready to burst.

Lilith was beginning to hallucinate. Her body was shutting down bit by bit. She didn't understand how she could possibly still register being fucked while she was impaled with a bar five inches thick.

He was all around her, inside her, impossible to escape.

Lilith would never know for sure if she did orgasm, it seemed impossible with the all-consuming pain and could have been just a figment of her dying brain.

His finish was much less mistakable. The hot rush of cum filled Lilith up, and he pulled out right after, making the excess drop down her thighs and join the blood on the floor.

The last thing Lilith knew was staring up into his eyes and realizing how badly she had lost.

Her golden eyes closed, her body stilled, and she slipped into an emptiness she never wanted to wake from, but inevitably would.

Jack stood up quickly. He would have much rather laid back down on the floor and basked in the afterglow of that intense session, but he needed to act quickly since every spare second ran the risk of Lilith being granted her wish of a quick death.

He slammed the button that controlled the bars again. They slid back up just as fast as they had slammed down. Lilith made a pathetic gurgling nose as the blood begin to flow freely from her, the rush significantly slower now that her heart was struggling to keep pumping.

Jack pulled a palm-sized glowing purple rock from his left pocket. A chunk of ultra refined eriduim, three times as dense as the handful of nuggets Lilith had been able to scrape together to fuel her teleportation of sanctuary.

He knelt beside her and pressed the rock against her chest with one hand, while the other moved to her collar. It read his fingerprints and the collar popped off with a soft click.

The reaction was instantaneous. Blinding Purple light engulfed them and the rock under Jack's fingers melted away faster than a chunk of cotton candy in water.

Jack leaped backward seconds before Lilith erupted into flames. A cocoon of fire wrapped around her from head to toe, completely obscuring her behind the roaring heat. Jack watched, so engrossed in the sight, he didn't even remember to tuck himself back into his pants.

Lilith burned and burned until it seemed like there wouldn't even be ashes left. Then the cocoon split down the middle, separating into two gorgeous fire wings that lifted her unconscious body up from the floor.

The wounds in her chest had healed, but a massive splotchy scar remained where the bar had pierced her.

Jack bent down and picked the collar up off the floor. He walked over to her, placed in the face of what would look to anyone else like a terrible fiery goddess, and slapped the device back around her neck.

The wings vanished, and Lilith fell. Jack held out his arms and caught her before she hit the floor.

Jack smirked so hard his cheeks hurt. Lilith had enough raw power to warp the fabric of reality, yet he could overcome her so easily with nothing but his cunning and technological mastery.

Lilith's golden eyes opened slowly, but Jack could tell by how unfocused they were that she wouldn't be conscious for very long. Her body might recover quickly, but her mind was still that of an ordinary woman, and could only deal with so much trauma.

He pulled her in and kissed her, feeling obnoxious as he decided to lap her into a particularly sloppy french kiss. Lots of tongue. She didn't fight back. Just lay still in his arms like a lifeless doll. He wouldn't be getting any more fun out of this toy today, though.

Jack walked her over to the cot and dumped her onto the mattress. Lilith's eyes were closed, and she seemed properly out for the count now.

On his way out, Jack paused to collect Lilith's clothing. He had meant to have the dirt rags burned for a while now, but he had also wanted to see Lilith strip herself out of it for him. The very last token from her life as a bandit and she had willingly taken it off so she could bend over and beg for his cock inside her.

This was a turning point. Jack could feel it. He could already see her kneeling at his feet and hear the pained screams as his pretty bird roasted his enemies alive at his command.

The bars slid closed behind him. Maybe in a few months, she would be well behaved enough to keep in his bedroom. Jack bit his bottom lip, feeling blood rush south again from the thought of it. If there was one thing that pissed him off about Nisha getting murdered, it was having to wake up in an empty bed. It'd be nice to wake to her gorgeous blu- YELLOW eyes.

Yellow was his favorite color, after all. It was the color of wealth. It was the color of massive electric power. It was the color between the bright beautiful blue sky of the day...and that endless, twinkling darkness of the night.

What wasn't to love?


	2. True Colors

Lilith lifted her head. Giving the barest response to the tug on her leash. Jack was still talking to one of his underlings, so she didn't bother standing up. She had quickly learned that just because Jack tugged on her leash, it didn't mean he was expecting her to do anything, only that he was getting bored with whatever he was doing and wanted to mildly annoy the nearest living thing (which these days was almost always her).

The reinforced fiber cable between them was about three feet long and attached to Lilith's collar under her chin. It had started out as six feet, but Jack had shortened it after Lilith had tried following him from as far away as it would allow.

All around them the little Hyperion worker bees buzzed. Blissfully unaware of how they were all tiny cogs pushing towards the deranged goals of a homicidal monster.

Many of them paused to stare at her on their way past. Well her and the aforementioned homicidal monster holding her leash. Lilith could only guess which part of the sight was more interesting. Was it seeing they're fearsome leader in the flesh? (Given how they worship him like a god it wasn't that far of a stretch.) Or maybe it was the glowing tattoos that marked her as a near-mythical siren? Or, was it just that handsome Jack was leading a fully-grown woman around his space station like a dog?

Did they even comprehend that this was wrong? Didn't they realize that he shouldn't be treating her like a piece of property?

She didn't even expect any of them to have the spine to mention the injustice to Jack, but even a single sympathetic or horrified look would have done wonders for her self-esteem. So far, though, the closest she had seen was an open-mouthed shock.

On the bright side, the indifference of the people around her made it very easy to hate them, and Lilith desperately needed a target for her hate that wouldn't stab her through the thigh for misbehavior.

Jack might have meant these walks to be humiliating for her. A notation reinforced by the outfit he had forced her to wear. The top half was strapless corset with black and yellow stripes down the sides and an ugly Hyperion logo over her right breast. There was a large gap between the bottom of the top and the tight and very low-cut leggings, exposing both her belly and almost all the tattoos on her hips and side.

It was clearly a sexed-up version of the outfit angel had been given to wear, but Lilith had refrained from pointing this out.

The man who had been conversing with Jack was starting to back away from him. A sure sign that whatever business had been going on was swiftly coming to a violent end.

Lilith pulled herself up onto her feet. It was best to stay mobile when Jack was feeling frisky since he would drag her right along with him if he tried to strangle this man.

"No… no please, sir, I'm sorry, I didn't-!" the man stammered. He fell to his knees in front of Jack, clasping his hands together as he pleaded.

"No, you're not. Not yet," Jack growled.

He looked over his shoulder, meeting Lilith's eyes.

"Birdy, do da- me, a favor and roast this worthless fucker alive."

Lilith blinked at Jack, her gaze slowly sliding over to the man on the floor. He looked like an average, run of the mill, Hyperion slime ball. She hadn't been listening to the conversation but whatever he had said to get on Jack's nerves was probably trivial at best.

Lilith had killed her fair share of people on Pandora. Okay, maybe a lot more than her fair share. But most of them had the decency to come running at her with a pipe bomb in hand first. Besides his shitty choice of corporations to work for, this man hadn't done anything wrong.

The humor in Jack's green and blue eyes was starting to wane. His anger shifted from the man to the pet that wasn't jumping to fulfill his commands.

"Lilly, Honey, did you not hear me? Kill. Him."

Lilith tore her eyes away from him and took a step towards the man. He flinched away from her. Covering his head with his arms, too terrified to even form sentences now.

"Go on. you'll regret making me ask again," Jack murmured just loud enough for Lilith to hear.

Lilith swallowed the lump in her throat. She had a perfect week of good behavior, she had killed and buried her pride to avoid another punishment, and now this random Hyperion stooge was going to fuck it all up for her. When she closed her eyes, Lilith could feel Jack's switchblade digging into her, see the blood flowing out of her like a gushing river. It filled up her lungs, choking her, drowning her.

At least this bastard would be allowed to die afterward. He had no idea how lucky that made him.

Lilith raised her right hand, reminding herself that this man had been all too willing to be a bystander when it was her being forced to kneel at Jack's feet.

Lilith's tattoos shone brightly as she summoned energy from the void between the universes.

'Sorry dude. It's you or me,' she thought, gritting her teeth and shutting her eyes.

The heat was intense, but Lilith was used to that. It was the screaming she couldn't stand.

Psychos and bandits? Now they were funny when they burned. Jabbering insane gibberish right until the end. But this? This was the ear-piercing wail of a perfectly sane man experiencing one of the most painful deaths imaginable. Lilith kept her eyes closed, willing the flames to burn brighter and hotter, trying to kill faster. But her collar would only allow her so much. Jack didn't want her overpowering the flameproof shield he had started wearing.

The screaming stopped, but Lilith didn't. She let the flames burn and burn until there was nothing left to give them fuel.

Lilith opened her eyes. On the floor in front of her was a pile of bones charred to a dark black, a pile of ashes, and a huge black scorch mark burned into the metal floor.

The whole of the hall of heroes had fallen into unearthly silence. There had to be over a hundred bystanders, but not one dared to make a sound as they stared at Lilith and the chard remains in front of her.

A woman who had been standing only five feet away had both hands clasped over her mouth caught in the middle of a silent scream.

Jack burst out laughing. Cackling with all the grace of a hyena. He doubled over, clutching at his chest as he struggled to breathe.

"Ho-holy shit. You just… you fried him to a fucking crisp!"

Jack took a deep breath in recovering from his giggle attack. He walked over to the pile of ashes and gave it a kick. The black powder scattered over the floor and the chunks of bone cracked and shattered into charcoal.

"if I hadn't seen you torch him myself I wouldn't even believe this used to be a person. One second he was all 'please Handsome Jack, don't kill me' then you just pointed at him, and he went like whoosh and now..."

Jack's attention zeroed back in on Lilith. She hadn't lowered her hand yet. What she had just done was still sinking in.

"God, are you as turned on as I am right now?" Jack asked. He closed the gap between them and caught Lilith with an arm around her lower back. His hips pressed up against hers, making it very clear that he hadn't meant it hyperbolically.

Jack kissed her, and Lilith found herself submitting to the distraction. The look of terror on the man's face faded away as she slipped into mindless passivity.

Their shell-shocked audience was beginning to unfreeze, Lilith could hear the footsteps of people hurrying away and the hushed whispers of others as they tried to reconcile what they had seen.

Jack's tongue was in her mouth, almost down her throat, and it was enough to keep her mind off anything else. A heat completely unlike the flames she could summon crept through her. Starting from between her legs and spreading out to her abdomen.

Jack released her suddenly, catching Lilith so off-guard that she nearly tumbled backward. She backed away from Jack, licking her lips but still tasting him in her mouth. Everyone was staring at her.

Then all at once it dawned on Lilith was had just happened to her. This whole episode had been carefully planned. Everything from the location to the victim was meant to fulfill a single purpose, to send a message. A very direct and powerful message about what her role and purpose were.

Before this event, Lilith had been a facet of the CEO's odder tendencies. But now his intended purpose for her was crystal clear. She was a deadly weapon that only he could control. It didn't matter that she would gladly sell Jack out to anyone with a snowball's chance of dethroning him; this image of her was now locked in place in the minds of the greater population of Helios.

There was no Lilith on Helios, only Jack's pet siren.

Jack pulled on the leash. Leading her towards the elevator that connected his office with the main hall. Lilith followed numbly, almost forgetting to walk around the pile of ash. A small cleaning robot slid in behind her and started to vacuumed up the mess she had made.

By the time the elevator doors closed behind her and Jack, the stain was already washed from the floor.

* * *

 

As soon as the doors of Jack's office shut behind them, Lilith tensed up. Expecting a harsh tug on her leash, leading her up towards Jack's desk or dragging her down onto the floor.

But instead, she heard the soft click of the leash being unhooked from her collar and footsteps moving away from her.

Lilith watched Jack traverse the long pathway up through the duel fountains. There was a tightness in her chest which seemed complete out of place. She couldn't be disappointed that Jack had decided not to force himself on her, could she?

Unless… Had she done something to annoy him? If so, then she did have something to be worried about. At least when Jack was treating her like a sex slave he curtailed his more violent urges.

Lilith glanced around the room, evaluating it the same way she would a battlefield. She needed to find some cover. A place where she could slip below Jack's notice until whatever activity he had planned next for her.

The obvious choice was the chairs and sofa in the northeast corner. Everywhere else was too sparsely decorated, unless she wanted to try hiding behind a ten-foot-tall bust of Jack's head and shoulders.

Lilith was all too aware of what was hiding right behind the seemingly innocuous bookcases. She paused in the spot where she had stood years ago, clutching tight to Roland's arm and watching horror-struck as the Hyperion scientists who'd helped them retake Helios were sucked out into space. In was that moment when she had realized Jack's pragmatism and heroic ambitions were nothing but a thin veneer covering something much, much, darker.

Looking around his office, Lilith realized that there were probably hidden death traps littered all over. A treasure trove of sick little toys for this demented man-child.

Lilith dropped herself into the chair with it's back turned to Jack's desk and curled her legs up against her chest. She decided to take the opportunity to nap, but soon after she had settled into a comfortable position and shut her eyes, the images of the burned bones and ash flitted through her mind.

Lilith jerked back up, hitting her head on the headrest. She swore under her breath rubbing her face with both hands.

' _That wasn't my fault. Jack used me. I didn't have a choice_.' Lilith thought. Trying to burn the words into her mind.

When she lowered her hands, her eyes fell to the shelves full of books. It had been ages since she had read anything. Books were rare on Pandora and weren't essential enough to save when whatever home she had built for herself inevitably got mortared into the ground by Hyperion.

She stood and wandered over to the shelves, idly wondering what kind of books a psychopathic dictator would keep in his collection. The shelf to the right was full of tomes of galactic history, while the second was fully stocked with every book ever written about Handsome Jack, including seven autobiographies supposedly by the man himself. (Lilith severely doubted Jack had the attention span to write a book. Hopefully, the ghost writers who had worked on them were still alive.)

Lilith spotted a familiar spine on the third shelf. The title was written in golden letters in an overly curvy font; 'The Princess and the submachine gun.' It was the first in a series of super pulpy Bunkers & Badasses novelizations about a siren princess who brakes out of her golden tower and travels all over the kingdom killing people and learning about the power of friendship.

Lilith ran her fingers over the spines of the books next to it. They were all here, all the ones she had read in high school. Including the one she had thrown at Marcy Clemons's head when she had called her 'the tramp-stamp bitch.'

But where Lilith's memory left off, the books kept going. She had missed a lot of them, but then, she hadn't really needed them on Pandora. Why dream about being a kickass siren when she was busy being one?

"So, you can actually read, huh? Color me shocked."

Lilith started, taking a step back and bumping right into Jack's chest. His arms closed around her tightly, pinning her upper arms to her sides.

"I know the author personally. I should call him up and tell him how the story ends-," Jack added as his fingers traced over the hemline of the leggings he had put Lilith in. "-The gorgeous siren princess marries a noble, handsome, heroic, and very handsome, king, and lives happily ever after behind the walls of his castle."

Lilith huffed. Jack clearly didn't even know the first thing about this series. He has probably just bought them because of the half-naked woman on the cover.

"Rose would never do that. She loves her freedom more than anything," Lilith replied.

Jack scoffed and reached towards the shelf. He picked out a novel with a light pink spine. The cover had a picture of a siren with bright Pink hair wearing a strapless wedding dress with a spiral of diamonds down the skirt.

"What about the part in book 6 where she almost marries the prince of Albion?" Jack asked.

"She changed her mind."

"But it was close, wasn't it? And can you blame, her? Living out in the badlands is tough. You always need to watch your back, you don't know where your next meal is coming from or if you'll even have somewhere dry to sleep. Eventually, that takes its toll, even on badass sirens."

Lilith rolled her golden eyes and bumped her shoulders back against Jack in her exasperation.

"You're missing the whole point. It's supposed to be about the sacrifices you have to make to do what's right!"

Jack chuckled and kissed her on the side of the neck.

"If you say so, nerd-zilla. But you should keep in mind that there aren't any happy endings on Pandora. Only survival, or death."

Jack put the book back on the shelf and released his captive. Lilith turned to face him, backing up against the bookshelf so she couldn't be blindsided again.

"I just read them for the crazy sex scenes, anyway. Like that bit with the dragon? Let me know if you'd like to try that sometime, I bet RnD could whip me up a thing or two," Jack said.

Lilith blinked at him. If he were anyone else, she would think he was joking. But she had fought too many of his lab-made monsters to consider anything off the table.

"I'm… good, thanks…" Lilith replied. Silently wishing she could go back in time and kick her 16-year-old self. Because if memory served, she had enjoyed that part too. Having anything in common with Jack, was awful enough without it having to be one of his many kinks.

"Anyyyyyyway, I didn't come over here to talk smut preferences with you. Thing is, I didn't want you to think your obedience this week went unnoticed…" Jack trailed off and made his way back toward his desk. Lilith tried to hold her ground, but her curiosity pulled her after him.

Jack sat down in his chair and picked up a cue-ball sized cube of glowing purple rock off his desk.

"So, little birdy, are you ready for your carrot? Or uh... I guess, birdseed? Tch, fricken… mixed metaphor. You get my point, though."

Jack tossed the cube overhand to Lilith who caught in both hands. As soon as it touched her fingers, her tattoos lit up bright purple, like someone had just thrown the light switch.

"A chunk of Eridium?" Lilith asked, raising an eyebrow at Jack.

"A highly-concentrated chunk of Eridium and two hours of playtime on Pandora's surface with all your powers restored."

Lilith nearly dropped the glowing mineral on her foot.

"You're shitting me…"

"I'm not. I told you before pet, nice things happen when I get what I want."

"How are you going to make me come back?"

"You're going to use the rest of the power surge from that Eridium chunk to teleport your gorgeous ass back to my office before the time limit."

"-and if I don't?"

"It's always about the punishments with you isn't it, little bird?" Jack sighed. "First, the collar activates, second, you get shocked so hard you pass out, third, it sends out a homing beacon, and I send a clean-up crew to collect you."

Lilith's brows knitted, her mind racing for a loophole in his plans. If she could find somewhere safe or someone to help her remove the collar.

As if he were reading her mind, Jack added, "Feel free to go running back to your bandit friends. After your collar goes off, I'll pop on over, and we can watch all the home movies you and I have been making. I'm sure they would just _love_ to know what we've been up to together the last few months."

Lilith's blood ran cold. Her fingers tightened so hard around the rock the corners nearly drew blood.

"-I wonder if they'd still feel like protecting you after hearing what you had to say a few nights ago? Hell, they might even hand you over willingly once they realize how much you're enjoying yourself here."

Lilith's chest ached, and it took her a moment to realize she had stopped breathing. She could already see the looks of disgust and hatred on they're faces. Mordecai and Brick would never forgive her, and the other six vault hunters would turn on her as quickly as they had on Angel when Jack had revealed her ties to him.

No excuse or explanation would be good enough. Nothing would justify the image of her kneeling willingly at Handsome Jack's feet, nevermind bending over for him to-

"Come on now pumpkin, this is supposed to be a reward. If you follow orders, nothing bad will happen," Jack said, breaking in on Lilith's tangled thoughts.

Jack's fingers closed over a small black device on his desk. It looked like a remote control but with only one button. He lifted it in the air so Lilith could see it and clicked the button.

The collar around Lilith's neck buzzed and a wave of sensation washed over her.

It was like she had been covered from head to foot in a layer of putrid goo for so long that she had gotten used to it, and only realized how awful it had been now it was suddenly gone.

Her connection to the ambient place between time and space returned so forcefully that she had to concentrate to stop herself slipping through into it.

Fiery wings sprouted from her back. The flames roaring and twisting in wild patterns.

She felt like she could turn this whole station and everyone inside of it into a melted pile of space junk. She could kill them, all of them. Just like that fucker in the hall of heroism. Burn each and every one of Jack's cronies into ash.

Jack still held the remote, his finger on the button. Silently threatening to press it should she make one false move.

' _Fine then.'_ Lilith thought bitterly. He wanted her to leave, and she would gladly oblige.

The cube of Eridium melted in her hands. It felt different from the scraps she was used to. It hit her softer but sunk in deeper. Erasing any doubts she's had that it would last her the whole two hours.

She pulled a slice of Pandora from her memory. Drawing a clear picture of the run-down cylindrical shelters erected by the DHAL cooperation to form pop-up mining communities.

Her arrival in Fyrestone had been the very first moment in her life that Lilith had been able to unleash the full extent of her power, and the first step towards her earning the title of vault hunter.

It was also one of the few places that had survived Jack's planetary makeover. If only because it was being kept as a massive trophy. A reminder that Handsome Jack could take anything he wanted and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Lilith let herself slide into the other realm, keeping the picture clear in her mind. She crossed the thousands of Kilometers between the moonbase and Pandora in a single step, time and space bending to her will.

Lilith landed on her back. The ground caved underneath her, then suddenly settled. The rough texture of sand rubbed against Lilith's skin. She sat up, taking in the rusting water tower, the rows upon rows of graves, and the lines of rickety shacks.

Lilith was probably the only sentient lifeform in the galaxy to who would feel ecstatic to be teleported into the middle of a ghost town on Pandora. She shot to her feet and took a long deep breath in. There was far too much pollutant runoff from the Hyperion faculties around her to call the air 'fresh,' but anything that wasn't re-filtered, re-oxygenated, or humidity controlled, tasted sweet enough for her.

The sun beat down on her bare skin and Lilith had a sudden urge to strip herself naked and bask in it. She looked down at her outfit and the Hyperion logo on the front, deciding to give that urge serious consideration.

"The clock starts now, pretty bird."

Lilith flinched and glanced around her wildly, but Jack's voice had just been transmitted through her collar. He was still back in his office on Helios.

"Yeah, I got it," Lilith muttered though she wasn't sure if the communicator even went both ways.

The rush of power tingled under Lilith's fingertips. She felt like she could teleport across the surface of Pandora and back again if she felt like it. After months of imprisonment, the whole planet was her playground.

Lilith knew she should be focusing on finding a loophole in Jack's plans to recapture her, but maybe that could wait for just a little while. She just needed to do a few things to help her remember what freedom felt like.

Two hours. One to mess around, and the other to find her way out. After all, nothing would be worse then if whatever plan she came up with failed, and she hadn't enjoyed herself at least a little.

* * *

 

Lilith dipped her hands into the crystal-clear water. She washed the stalker blood from her fingers absent-mindedly, gazing up at the floating city hanging 8000 feet above the highlands.

The snowflakes caught in her tangled red hair were slowly melting. Souvenirs from her slide down the tallest mountain in The Southern Shelf.

Just in the last hour and a half Lilith had swum in the tropical waters off the Wham-Bam Islands, sunbathed on a dune in The Dust, jumped off a cliff in Frostburn Canyon, and slain a badass stalker.

Lilith's heart pounded in her chest, and she had never felt so happy to be alive.

But she was also running out of time.

Lilith got to her feet, her eyes still fixed on Sanctuary. Jack's threats ringing in her ears.

Asking for help was too risky, Jack had control over the whole ECHO network on Pandora and could broadcast his blackmail with only few button presses. But maybe she could sneak her way into the city and just get a lay of the land.

If her friends didn't know she was there, Jack wouldn't get to see her being rejected. Which for him, was half the fun.

Lilith closed her eyes and teleported. Aiming for the roof of the Crimson Raiders HQ. She missed by half a meter and almost slipped off the edge onto the second-floor balcony. She threw herself forward onto the safety of the roof, a few tiny pieces of debris tumbling off the edge and hitting the balcony railing.

"The hell?"

Lilith recognized Mordecai's voice and froze. As befitting the team sniper, he had the sharpest ears and eyes of anyone Lilith had ever met. He was also the most likely to climb up to the rooftop to check for intruders.

Lilith pressed a hand over her mouth and watched as Mordecai appeared on the balcony below her. He walked right to the edge and craned his neck around, scanning the nearby buildings.

Lilith wanted nothing more than to jump down and hug Mordecai. But fear and the pinch of the collar around her neck kept her rooted in place.

A huge bang echoed from inside the situation room. Lilith felt the reverberation of the impact through her feet.

Mordecai twisted around and snapped, "God-damn it, Brick. Would you knock it off? You're going to take the whole place down!"

"Then give me something better to punch!" Brick shouted from further inside.

Mordecai went back inside, and Lilith let out the breath she had been holding. She slipped into phasewalk and dropped down off the side of the roof. While inhabiting the space between words, Lilith was completely invisible and intangible. Nothing on the other side of the veil could hurt her or vice-versa.

She slipped around the corner and pressed her back against the wall. Brick was standing near the concrete archway that connected the bank vault to the situation room. The pillar had a hole it in that was about the same size and shape as brick's watermelon-sized fists.

"Just calm down. The others will be back soon. With any luck they'll have some new information," Mordecai said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

"Bullshit. It's been five months. If we were going to find anything, we would have found it," Brick snapped. He slammed his fists into the wall again, the whole building shook slightly, and a cloud of dust rained down from the ceiling.

"Yeah, well, it's better than just giving up," Mordecai hissed through his teeth.

"This should be over. We won! We killed that warrior thing, beat Jack into a bloody pulp, and got the key back!"

"You heard what happened. It was that fucking collar thing of his. He had complete control over Lilith, she didn't have a choice but to teleport him away!"

Brick grunted by way of a reply. He pulled back his arm but let it drop instead of slamming it into the pillar again.

Taking this as a positive sign, Mordecai continued, "I just wish I knew why we haven't heard a single peep out of Hyperion since. Jack's probably been licking his wounds and trying to find a backup plan… but why is he keeping Lilith alive?"

"She could be dead," Brick muttered, staring straight ahead at the wall.

"Jack would have rubbed it in our faces. Probably have had her corpse stuffed and put in his museum right next to bloodwing. That bastard is only quiet when he's up to something, and whatever is it involves Lilith."

Lilith shook her head and stared down at her invisible feet. She knew Mordecai had it all wrong. Far from being a key part in Jacks plans, she was only his latest plaything and an avenue to vent his frustrations.

The cogs started turning over in Lilith's mind as she wondered how best to get a message to her friends without letting them see her. She could leave a note, but since she couldn't interact with any objects on the other side of her phasewalk she would need to wait till she was alone. She didn't really have much time to…

"Ten minutes left, little bird."

Jack's voice rung out clear in the empty silence that had followed Mordecai's musings. The veil had a dampening effect on sound passing through it, but the room was so silent it hadn't helped.

"What the fuck…? Did you-?" Mordecai began to ask, but Brick was already moving towards the source of the sound.

Lilith managed to hold back her gasp of surprise. After years watching Brick's back, she had forgotten just how terrifying he was from the front.

Lilith made for the door that led further into the building. Although she was invisible and invincible, Lilith couldn't pass through solid objects in phasewalk, a category that definitely contained Brick.

She collided with him head-on in her rush for the doorway. The world turned end over end, and Brick made a reflexive grab for whatever had hit him. Fortunately, the solid object clause only went one way, so his fingers passed harmlessly through Lilith's upper torso.

Lilith staggered and kept running. Jack's promised punishment playing out in her mind so clearly, it felt more like a memory than a possibility.

Brick and Mordi would hate her, the other vault hunters would hate her, the whole of Sanctuary would hate her if they only knew what she had agreed to in the heat of the moment.

Lilith twisted her body, searching for the stairwell that would lead her down to the main level of the building. Her eye locked onto it just in time to see it go sailing past. She dug in her heels to change direction but instead of concert flooring, her foot met only empty air.

Lilith slid and toppled forward over the edge. Only remembering at that exact moment that the room just beyond the bank vault had been bifurcated when she had teleported the city, and now contained nothing but a straight drop back down to the grasslands.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lilith caught a glimpse of Brick and Mordecai standing in the vault room. Both armed with pistols and searching for the intruder.

Lilith accepted the beginning of the 8000-foot plunge with the calm resignation of both a siren with teleportation powers and a woman who had spent the last five months contemplating suicide.

The wind whistled past Lilith's ears. The rushing currents felt like they were curling around her body like the world softest beanbag chair.

The chunk of Eridium she had been given had almost completely worn off. The timeline fit so perfectly that Lilith was certain Jack had his scientists carefully measured out the release time.

She had one last big shot in her. She could use it to go anywhere on Pandora, or back to Helios.

Yet another choice between fruitless resistance or mindless subservience. No matter what card she played, she was still stuck in a game where only Jack knew the rules and could change them at a moment notice to suit him better. Even making a choice was playing right into his hands.

He wanted to test her resolve and see how well his conditioning was sinking in. No matter what she did, he would have a satisfactory answer in the next 11 seconds left in her free fall.

The ground was coming up fast, the dots milling about the empty planes were becoming steady more recognizable as stalkers and skags.

There was always that the third option… and thanks to that accidental slip, she wouldn't have to do anything but close her eyes and let go.

The thought was so compelling Lilith Spent 8 of her eleven seconds thinking it over.

Around the time she was close enough to count the spikes on the head of one of the badass skags mulling around the grassland, Lilith made her choice.

Goading Jack into murdering her was one thing, but allowing him to push her into suicide was fucked up on a completely different level. He didn't have that kind of power over her. Not now, and not ever.

Lilith twisted in the air, flipping over backward so she was falling feet first. She gathered up the stray flickers of energy through her body and bound them together tightly, concentrating the power.

A flash of purple light and Lilith exited phasewalk and her teleport simultaneously. She hit the metal floor in a crouch, the thud of her impact echoing around Jack's empty office.

She stood up. The sudden absence of inertia sent her head spinning and stomach twisting, but Lilith didn't let it show, swallowing back the urge to vomit.

She glanced up at Jack's desk. His attention was completely focused on a holographic monitor, and it didn't even look like he had noticed her entrance.

Just as the thought to enter phasewalk and ambush him crossed Lilith's mind, Jack picked the remote control up from his desk and tapped the button.

The collar around Lilith's neck beeped as it activated. The power drained out of Lilith's body. One moment she had the whole of Pandora and Elpis in the palm of her hand, then the Helios moonbase closed around her, and she was acutely aware of the vast distances between her and anything not owned by Jack.

The cold wash of fear did chase away the rest of Lilith's nausea though, so it wasn't all bad.

Lilith squared her shoulders, bracing herself for cruel laughter and gloating over her obedience. A minute passed, then another five, and the only sound in the large empty room was the rhythmic clicking of Jack's mechanical keyboard.

Usually, Jack made a point of heaping praise on her for good behavior. The gesture was as shallow as a puddle, but it's sudden absence left Lilith feeling as if she were standing thigh-deep in quick sand and trying to figure out how deep it might be.

Unsure about what she was meant to do next, Lilith stood and shifted from one foot to the other.

She glanced down at her arms and the front of her corset. She had missed quite a few spots of stalker blood, including a large splotch on her elbow from when she had dug it into the squishier part of a badass stalker's eye.

Stalker blood contained traces of a paralytic poison used to slow down prey that had already been bitten. If left to sit on her skin, her pores would absorb enough to make her feel stiff tomorrow morning.

She had made the mistake of going to bed with a spot of unwashed blood on her shoulder the first week she had spent on Pandora. Roland had been kind enough to sit by her side and rub her arm until some of the feelings came back.

She remembered it so clearly. The rare Pandorian sunrise cresting the horizon, the kindness and concern in his dark brown eyes as he examined her. With the benefit of hindsight, Lilith had come to realize that was the moment she had started falling in love with him.

The happy memory snuffed itself out as quickly as it had come on. Lilith shoved all those emotions down into the pit of her stomach, knowing that if they stuck around long enough, they would make her cry.

The sound of rushing water caught her attention and Lilith eyed the nearest of the two fountains. A seemingly endless flow of water fell from a protrusion in the large metal rectangle.

Lilith glanced at Jack again, but he was no more interested in what she was doing than the last time. Before she could reconsider, Lilith tucked her fingers into the fasteners on the front of her corset. With a bit of fiddling, it came free, and she chucked the whole thing over her shoulder.

Her boots, leggings, and panties slid off easily and were given slightly more dignified placement next to the railing at the fountain's edge. Lilith vaulted over the railing and landed with a splash in the ankle-deep water.

It was colder then Lilith had expected, but she was to committed to this to stop now. She padded over to the fountain's head and stepped under the flow, repressing a shiver as the cold water cascaded down her skin.

After a minute or so she got used to the temperature and the steady pressure of the water on her shoulders started to feel good. Lilith closed her eyes and leaned her head back, the clear water soaked her hair, rinsing away the salt from her dip in Pandora's tropical ocean.

The water found many paths of least resistance across her skin, forming a pattern of tiny streams and rivulets that traced the subtle curves of her body. Lilith took a deep breath in, soaking in the feeling.

"Huh, I had no idea my fountains could double as birdbaths."

Lilith told herself not to bother opening her eyes. She already knew exactly what she would see. Jack would be leaning on the railing and leering at her with that smug snakelike grin on his face.

"I had stalker blood on me."

"Yeah? I hear that stuff is pretty nasty. The RND tried to refine the poison, but it never fully worked on humans. Shame really, there's a good market in incapacitation-agents that haven't been legislated against yet."

Lilith tried not to think about what uses Jack might have for a poison that paralyzed victims while keeping them still conscious. She lifted a hand up to brush her wet bangs back from her eyes.

A splash came from behind her, and Lilith froze with her hand on her forehead.

Fingers closed abound her wrist, and a hand grabbed her hips. Lilith gasped as she was tugged back from the water stream and her left arm was twisted behind her back. Her eye snapped open, and the first thing she noticed was the yellow sweater and steel gray coat sitting next to her legging and boots by the fountain railing.

Somehow the thought of Jack following her into the fountain hadn't crossed Lilith's mind. It just seemed too uncouth for the self-made king of a corporate empire. But then, she of all people should've known how shallow that façade was.

"I know you must have been terribly disappointed I didn't play with you this morning, but you don't need to stoop so low just to catch my attention, pumpkin."

"I didn't-" Lilith protested before her brain caught up with her mouth and snapped it shut.

"Oh, you didn't?" Jack purred. He used his leverage on Lilith's arm to force her to turn and face him. "Then I guess my greedy little birdy just got her feathers ruffled because I didn't give her a treat for coming back on time."

Jack released Lilith's arm and pulled her flush against his chest in a mockery of a loving embrace. He caught her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head till their eyes met.

"Silly girl. If you knew when the treats were coming, you would only behave when there was something in it for you," Jack explained.

The hand holding her chin moved to her chest. Lilith turned her head away from him, trying and failing to ignore him as he felt up her breasts.

"Besides, we both know you weren't on your very best behavior today."

Jack punctuated his point by pinching her nipple between his pointer and middle finger. Lilith hissed and stamped her foot, sending a shockwave of water outwards.

"You must know that I put a tracker in your collar, but you still went back to Sanctuary to see your ugly bandit friends. It was nice to check up on them. Glad to see they're just as dumb as I remember..."

The hand that had been holding Lilith's waist traced over her stomach and down between her legs. Before Lilith could decide if it was worth it to pull away, he pushed two fingers into her. Lilith gritted her teeth and winced, he wasn't trying to be gentle in the least, and she wasn't nearly wet enough for it. Lilith sucked in a breath and held it. When she let go, the pain had started to subside as her body caught up with what was being forced on it.

"It's a shame you hid so well. I'm really looking forward to when they see how much you've changed, all the marks I've left on you…" Jack purred, nuzzling into Lilith' neck near the numerous scars he had left both there and on her chest.

Jack pressed his thumb roughly against the folds that hid her clit as he worked the fingers in and out. Though rough, it worked well enough to start adding sparks of pleasure into the mix. Lilith leaned her head against Jack, staring blankly at the wall behind his shoulder. She imagined the scars littering her body were burning and that she could feel each one as fresh as the day she got them.

Whenever anyone looked at her, the first thing they would notice would be Jack's brands. She had too many of them now, even for a Pandoran bandit. Brick and Mordi and the others would never look at her the same way again. They would see what Jack at done to her before anything else.

The shelter of her spiraling thoughts shattered as Jack pulled her fingers out and spun her around. Lilith stumbled and caught the bar on the edge of the fountain with both hands to stop herself from landing face first in the water.

Jack grabbed her hips with both hands. Lilith realized with a shudder what position she was in. Jack pressed his hips up against her backside and something warm and hard prodded her right between her upper thighs.

Jack wasn't holding her anymore, she could just vault over the railing and get away from him. Lilith's shoulders and arms began to tremble with the force of her grip on the railing, but her feet stayed planted as if they were immersed in concrete.

"Sshhhh… it's okay" Jack purred, moving his hands up from her hips and along Lilith's sides. "Just take a deep breath, cupcake. This time won't be like the last one. You made such a gorgeous picture for me, I'm just going to give you what you asked so nicely for."

Lilith bowed her head, resting her forehead on the fingers curled around the railing. This would be over soon, she just had to endure it and not say or do anything stupid this time.

She nodded mutely and spread her legs a little. Needing no more provocation, Jack gripped her hips and thrust in deep. Lilith wished it hurt, but it didn't. He fit easily inside of her, setting her nerves alight with every firm thrust. No matter how much she hated him, she couldn't make herself stop responding to the physical act.

"-So, remember that little stunt you pulled?" Jack asked, reaching forward to grab a fistful of Lilith's fire red hair. "I'm not sure if that was an accident, but for the record, I sent out a drone the moment you started falling. Two more minutes and it would have caught you."

Lilith stayed quiet. Part of her insisted that she had made her choice and the fact suicide might not have worked didn't change the fact she had decided to live. But another part wondered if she had known all along that Jack would have a backup plan and if she had only tricked herself into thinking she had made a real choice.

"You don't have the right to decide what happens to you anymore. You're mine now, little bird. You don't eat unless I feed you, you don't go unless I take you, and you don't die until I say so."

Jack twisted the red locks in his fingers and forced Lilith to lift her head up from the railing. Lilith stared down blankly at the water until she caught a glimpse of her reflection. Her own body stretched out, Jack behind her filling her up and running her up against the fountain railing. She had let this happen, was letting it happen.

Lilith shut her eyes again leaning back more to ease the pain of Jack pulling her hair. All she could hope for was that he would finish with her soon. He had cum quickly last time, but that had been while watching her choke out her last breath. She was very aware of the orgasmic-like joy he took in killing, so that must have been like Christmas crossed with his birthday.

Lilith took a hand from the railing and reached behind her head. She touched Jack's hand and the fingers in her hair loosened. She took hold of his wrist and guided his hand to the back of her neck.

"Naughty girl. You really won't be happy unless I hurt you," Jack mused.

Lilith nodded her head in agreement. He got off on hurting her, and she needed the pain, so her body and mind suffered together. Seemed like a perfectly fair arrangement.

"There are two very different ways to cut off the flow of oxygen to someone's brain. You can crush the windpipe, or you can pitch off the arteries," Jack explained as he wrapped his fingers around Lilith's throat.

"The first is very dangerous, it's so easy to crush the fragile bones in the neck and cut the airway off permanently."

Jack ran his thumb over the subtle ridge of bone. Stopping at the divot in her collar bone where the throat was most vulnerable.

"-For the second, you just need to locate the attires on either side of the trachea…"

Jack's fingers moved to the sports as he mentioned them, feeling for Lilith's pulse before pressing down.

"-then you **squeeze** and count to-"

At first, the pressure seemed like nothing. Then a blinding shock of pain hit. Lilith's eyes shot open only for the room to spin wildly around her. Pressure built up behind her eyes and splotches of inky blackness closed in on her vision.

"One, two, three…"

Jack released her in time with a rough buck of his hips. The rush of blood and endorphins hit Lilith like a freight train, and her relieved moan echoed loudly back to her in the empty chamber.

"Feels pretty good, huh? And the best part? As long as I don't cut off the flow of blood for too long, I can do it over, and over again, and you'll be perfectly fine… well, more or less anyway."

Jack chuckled darkly to himself. Already anticipating how she would tighten around him when he resumed strangling her.

"But this time… yeah, this time just a few more should do it. You'll see…"

He tightened his grip again, and Lilith's whole body went tense. She could breathe just fine, but she could feel her brain struggling. Her heart rate skyrocketed, but it was all for nothing since Jack's fingers kept the pathways firmly shut.

When he released the second time, Lilith felt the tingling from her stomach all the way down to her thighs.

He was right. Each time was pushing her closer. If he didn't stop… if she didn't make him stop.

Jack's fingers closed for the third time, and he counted out loud again

Three, two, ooooooone...

He let go, but this time the wave of endorphins had aftershocks. Lilith's breath hitched, and her back arched up.

Just as the second wave was dying away, Lilith felt the rush of heat inside her that meant Jack was just about finished with her.

He pulled out a moment later, but the mess he had left was just starting to slide its way down Lilith's inner thighs. She held her position, frozen like a statue.

Jack splashed his way out of the water and over the railing. Pausing on his way past to give Lilith a rough pat on the head and a mummer of "That's a good birdy. Your master is very, very, pleased,"

He got redressed quickly since he had only gotten his feet and ankles wet. Lilith released the railing and sank down into the shallow water.

Jack had made her orgasm. Worse, they had finished together. She had sex with the man who murdered her boyfriend twice and this time she had liked it. No, she had loved it. She ate up his abuse like the worthless slut she was.

Lilith stared down at her ugly scarred body, used and abused beyond what should be human limits. Ripped apart and stitched back together, only to be ripped apart again.

Her throat hurt, the imprints from Jack's fingers still felt as real as if they were still wrapped around her neck.

Lilith struggled to her feet and groped her way back to the fountain.

She stood for a while with the water running down her shoulders. Jack's rant about how she belonged to him playing over and over in her head.

if Lilith couldn't even control her own body, how long wound it be until her mental resolve broke and she became the loyal pet he was trying to morph her into?

Jack came up to the railing again. He was fully dressed, but the Jacket looked a worse for it's short vacation to the floor. He was holding a white and very fluffy towel over one arm.

"Time to get out, birdy. Once your feathers are nice and dry, I think it's time to get you settled in your new quarters. "

* * *

 

Lilith had never felt this tired before. The bed underneath her was softer and more giving than five feet of freshly fallen snow. It bent under her every curve, supporting and cradling her.

It was the best and most expansive bed within a two thousand light year radius, and that could only mean that it belonged to Handsome Jack.

Silent tears streaked down Lilith's cheeks leaving dark stains on the pillow. She didn't have the strength to move, her place was too comfortable and the ease it gave to her litany of aches and bruises felt too good.

But she couldn't sleep, not in his bed. Lilith couldn't have explained why, but she felt that if she drifted off here, she would be lost forever.

So, she kept her golden eyes wide open and fixed out the window on the view of Elpis out the picture window behind the headboard. She stared up at it, the pillow supporting her neck.

The wasn't anything she wouldn't give to tell her younger self to stay as far away from Jack as possible. If only she had minded her own business, maybe she and Roland would have headed out to one of the Eden's and settled down.

Every time she had tried to fight Jack it came back to hurt her twice as bad as she hurt him. She was just too arrogant and stupid to see it until she had lost everything.

She could have walked away at any point. After Jack killed those innocent scientists, after the failed attempt to kill him and his vault hunters, or even after Jack had gone after the vault of the Sentinel.

But she had followed him, she had decided to get in that sucker punch. All she needed to do was destroy the artifact, but she had seen a chance, and without even giving a moment to consider, she had leaped at it.

The moment her fist had hit the artifact and branded Jack's face, she had tied herself to him for eternity.

She had made herself the archenemy of an obsessive psychopath. One who only too happy to take his revenge nice and slowly over the rest of her life.

Jack's hatred of her was so intense it had landed Lilith in the exact same place that love would have. In his bed, in his quarters.

He wasn't in there with her right now, thank the creator, but it said enough that he considered her so little of a threat that he was planning to sleep beside her.

Lilith couldn't even convince herself he was wrong. She had lost a lot of weight since her capture, and when her collar turned to max, she couldn't even light a match.

Even smothering the bastard to death was probably beyond her. He might even enjoy it if she tried.

Lilith rolled onto her chest hiding her eyes from the glow of the planet above her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't attempt to perform a Blood choke on anyone in real life. it's probably not as easy as Jack makes it sound.


	3. Dancing With The Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written by a wide margin. I love it so much.

 

"It's time to wake up, pretty birdie. Let's see those gorgeous yellow eyes."

Lilith groaned, there was a sickly taste in her mouth, and her whole body ached. Something sharp was digging into her skin around her wrists, ankles, and thighs, but when she tried to move away, she found her limbs pinned in place.

"We're going to be deviating from the usual schedule today, pumpkin. I had my guys set up a little… let's call it an 'experiment'. It's going to be so much fun."

Lilith winced at the sound of Jack's voice. She blinked her eyes rapidly, his masked face swimming into focus above her.

The lights behind his head were blinding, and It was a while before Lilith could make out any details of the rest of the room.

She was laying on a medical examination table with thin black padding that was cold against her bare skin. Looking up, she saw her wrists tied above her head with silver-buckled straps, specially made to overpower a struggling subject as they were pulled taught. Similar bindings were secured around her ankles and thighs and attached to the examination table.

Lilith couldn't remember right at that moment what her state of dress had been before Jack had drugged her, but if she had been wearing anything, it was long gone now.

Jack's fingertips traced over the swirling circular pattern that graced the skin over Lilith's heart, then followed one of the lines down her shoulder, over her side, hips, and eventually her stomach.

Lilith tried to press her thighs together as Jack's fingers passed over her lower tummy, but the restraints kept them open.

Jack took his hand back with a smirk and leant over Lilith, planting his hands on either side of her head.

"You've gotten so good at holding your tongue lately, and as much as I appreciate a girl who knows her place, I'm really starting to miss the sound of your voice. So, why don't you start by asking me what I'm going to do to you?"

Lilith ran her tongue over her dry lips. "What are you going to do to me?" She asked, parroting the words back with all the gusto of a speech to text program.

"Uh, uh, uhhh. You're so close, but you can't forget to add the magic word," Jack chided.

"-Master…"

"There we go. Good birdy."

Jack reached over to a surgical tray resting beside Lilith's head. It was placed just high enough that Lilith couldn't see anything that was on it, not that she felt like it would help her much.

Jack dangled the item he had retrieved in front of her eyes, and to Lilith's surprise, it wasn't a scalpel or another medical instrument. It appeared to be a pink oval about the size and shape of a single shotgun casing. Lilith's golden eyes flicked from it to Jack, a sliver of dubious apprehension in the downward curve of her lips.

Jack chuckled and gave the tiny ball a squeeze. A mechanical switch clicked, and a soft purring hum started emitting from the device. Under more relaxed circumstances, that's probably when Lilith would have twigged to what it was, but she had convinced herself so thoroughly that she was about to be sliced open that the thought of it causing her anything other than pain didn't cross her mind until after Jack pressed it against her right nipple.

The muscles all along Lilith's side tensed up, and the sudden twinge of pleasure caught her so off-guard that she gasped. It took Lilith another five seconds before she realised none of the sensations coursing through her were unpleasant.

"That's a… Vibrator?" Even saying it out loud, Lilith couldn't quite believe it. He drugged her and tied her up in his specimen exam room just to play with some toys?

"Uh, yeah? Dhu!" Jack replied with a roll of his eyes.

He pulled the egg back and moved it to her other breast, gently circling over and around the sensitive bud, just barely touching the buzzing tip to her skin.

"Please tell me you've used one before, babe. Didn't you ever go out of your way to treat yourself?"

Lilith bit down hard on her bottom lip. She had no idea what he was expecting. Pandora didn't exactly have a conveniently located sex toy shop. Moxxie could have probably whipped up something for her if she'd asked, but Lilith had never worked up the nerve.

Jack pulled the egg back and dropped it onto the tray.

"Mmm, look at those gorgeous perky tits…" he purred, cupping one in each hand and digging his fingers into the soft skin.

Lilith used the chance to even out her breathing. Whatever his plans entailed, Jack was clearly trying to knock her off-guard. Keeping calm would be key to surviving whatever torture he had planned for her.

Jack met her eyes, and his smirk widened into a lopsided grin.

"Such a sour face. Don't fret babydoll, I know you were hoping I'd put that little toy where you really need it..." Jack slipped a hand between Lilith's thighs and ran two fingers over her lips. The teasing to her nipples had warmed her up enough that his fingertips came away sticky.

Jack reached over to the tray and picked out another toy that was five times the size of the little vibrator.

"-but I have something much more powerful than that to fill you up."

Lilith didn't get a good enough look at it to know much beyond the fact it was the length and size of a typical cock, but with a smaller second shaft protruding from the base.

The tip of the vibrator pressed against her with a gradually increasing pressure until it slipped inside. Jack took his sweet time easing it in, letting Lilith feel every centimetre. The curved shaft settled deep inside, the tip put the tiniest amount of pressure on her cervix. From what Lilith could feel, it was thickest in the middle, narrowing gradually around the tip and base.

The second shaft, which Lilith thought would be penetrating her as well, actually stayed on the outside of her body, settled right up against her clit.

"Neat, huh?" Jack grinned. "They're called Jackrabbit vibrators. Fitting really, since they're the second greatest gift to womankind, right after myself, of course."

Jack closed his fingers around the base. There was a rounded dial built into it, with tiny white letters indicating what each setting was.

"This one has about six levels of intensity. Want to make a bet how high I'll need to turn it?"

"No… master," Lilith replied, holding his gaze. She was doing her best not to think about what would happen once he switched it on.

"Suit yourself, babe," Jack said with a shrug. "-but my money is on you not making it past level four." He touched the base and twisted the dial to the first notch.

Lilith grit her teeth together, throwing all her willpower into holding back whatever noises she would make. It worked for about five seconds, right up until a ricocheting wave of ecstasy overpowered her and she let out a moan so loud and sharp it sounded like more of a scream.

Jack ran his fingers through her hair, watching as Lilith squirmed against her bonds. The movement didn't even feel voluntary. The sharp and unpredictable stimulus arched through her like lightning, ripping away her control.

The part on the outside had two tiny protrusions in the shape of ears, most likely the rationale for the nickname 'Rabbit', that sat on either side of her clit applying vibration directly to the hyper-sensitive spot. It would have been enough to hurt had it been the only sensation, but the shaft bussing away inside her centralised it into an all-consuming force.

"I could keep you like this for hours," Jack mused. He pressed a hand against Lilith's chest, right between her breasts, feeling her heart pounding against his fingertips. "But we have so much left to do…" Jack sighed dramatically and took hold of the dial on the base of the vibrator. "Next time, sweet bird."

He clicked the dial up two more settings. The muscles in Lilith's lower tummy visibly tightened as her insides squeezed around the toy. Her heavy breathing broke into whimpers that sounded so pathetic she wanted to slit her own throat to make it stop.

Instead of letting go of the base, Jack began moving it in lazy circles. Lilith's leg jerked as the shaft pressed into a particularly sensitive spot inside her, the pressure doubling the vibration's power.

"Go ahead and cum for your master," Jack purred.

'Fucking, make me,' Lilith thought bitterly. She was drowning in guilt from all the times Jack had forced her to orgasm, and each repetition was like another weight being tired to her foot.

Jack might as well have read her thoughts because he dialled it up another setting and started to thrust the vibrator back and forth. It was only a few centimetres of movement, but each time the curved tip hit Lilith's cervix she came further and further undone.

Lilith dug into every ounce of control she had left, but there was only so much she could do mentally to hold herself back. It was like trying to find a place to grab on a solid wall of ice.

Lilith shut her eyes, trying to block out the sound of her own whimpers as her body succumbed to the vibrator inside her. She came hard, trembling against the unwavering bindings as wave after wave crashed over her. It was the best single feeling she had felt in years, strong enough to make her forget for five blissful seconds whose hand was gently brushing her cheek.

Jack shut off the vibrator and pulled it out. The shaft was soaked, and a few drops of lubricant dripped off the tip and onto the exam table.

"That's my favourite little slut," Jack said, placing the vibrator back with the rest of his tools. "You're just about ready for part 2."

Lilith rested her head back on the table. She didn't want to give Jack the satisfaction of thinking she was worried about whatever he had planned next, so she didn't watch what he was doing when he stepped away from her.

He came back with a large metal bowl under one arm. He reached into it and pulled out a stone egg about the same size and shape a chicken might have laid. The stone gave off a shimmer of purple light as Jack held it up. It had to be Eridium, though Lilith had never seen it processed with such a smooth finish.

Jack placed the egg on Lilith's chest, right between her breasts. Lilith pulled a breath in, but the power inside it stayed put. She could feel it reaching out to her, but the connection was hovering just out of reach.

"We just perfected these gorgeous bastards last night. They're nearly five times as powerful as the last blend I gave you. Three or four of these, and you could burn a whole bandit camp to the ground in five minutes flat."

Jack took the egg back, tossed it in the air, and caught it.

"Thing is, the formula is so complex that you can't absorb it through external skin contact. Soooo, we really only have two options… force it down your throat, or…" Jack trailed off and shot Lilith a grin that turned her stomach.

She stared at the egg in his hand. It looked smooth enough it wouldn't hurt if he put it in, but the whole idea was just too crazy to seriously consider.

"T-that doesn't make any sense…" she muttered, wincing at how breathless her post-orgasm voice sounded.

"Ah, I see we have a siren of little faith. It works the same with drugs, y'know. You Just shove it up somewhere, and it bypasses the liver and goes right into the bloodstream..."

"-not that I've ever tried it," Jack added hastily.

He started tracing the narrow tip of the egg over Lilith's inner thighs. Taking his time as he made his way to her entrance.

"-and If it doesn't work, you'll just have to push it back out for me. Won't you?" Jack added.

Lilith did her best to ignore the slick sounds as Jack ran the tip of the stone egg over her lower lips.

"The fun question is; how many are you going to fit at once? Any bets, Lilly?"

Lilith shook her head. Her eyes fixed on his eyes and not what was going on between her thighs.

"No? That's disappointing, but I suppose we're going to find out soon enough."

Jack tapped his middle finger against the base of the egg and pushed it in as deep as it would go. Lilith felt the pressure on her cervix as the curved top bumped up against it.

"That's one..."

Jack took a second from the bowl and slid it in after the first. Stone clicked against stone inside her and Lilith's breath hitched. This was different than being filled with a single shaft. The eggs moved about independently and ran up against each other.

"Two…"

Lilith started to feel the stretch on the third one, Jack took his time moving them around until the second and third egg sat side by side.

"And three… it's going to get a little tricky now. Hang in there for a bit, babe."

The fourth and fifth went in right after one another, although getting them to stay inside was another matter entirely. Jack clicked his tongue in mild frustration as he tried to shift the last two eggs into a position where they wouldn't be automatically pushed out.

Lilith clamped her eyes shut, each time one of the eggs was moved it bumped up against the others, stretching her open wider bit by bit. She could make it harder for him just by flexing her muscles, but that would only drag this out longer.

The fourth egg finally nestled next to two and three, while the fifth sat in sideways. It hurt at first, but once they were in place, Lilith found herself quickly getting used to it.

Jack took his hand back, idly licking his fingers clean as he took in the results of his experiment. The last purple egg was partially visible, it's glowing purple shell nestled between Lilith's lower lips. Jack pulled his fingers from his mouth with a pop.

"What do'ya know. I guess they fit after all."

Jack closed a hand over the side of the exam table, digging his fingertips into the firm padding. Lilith could practically feel the tension radiating from him. She had only seen this level of intensity from Jack once before; when they were waiting for the arrival of the other vault hunters at hero's pass.

It was then that Lilith realised Jack had two levels to his desires. The first was a casual entitlement that was strongly reminiscent of a toddler demanding sweets. The second was deeper and drew on all of Jack's worst tendencies. It was an overwhelming, obsessive lust that would only intensify with every moment it went unsatisfied.

Last time, Jack had ached to spill the blood of those he believed responsible for his daughter's death. Now, even though his focus was on one of his dearly hated enemies, he didn't seem interested in killing or even injuring her. At least not in this moment.

Jack wrapped his fingers around Lilith's throat, the junction between his pointer finger and thumb digging into her trachea. He leant down to kiss her. Lilith parted her lips automatically on contact, her survival instincts attuned to her abuser's preference for open-mouthed kissing.

His other hand was back between her legs. Pressing against the last egg, trying to force it in deeper. The movement transferred from one polished stone to the next, hitting countless pressure points inside her.

Lilith's moan was muffled by the lips pressed firmly against hers, but the predatory grin Jack gave her when he leant back made it clear he had gotten the reaction he wanted.

It wasn't nearly enough, she could see that in his mismatched eyes. Before this moment, Lilith wouldn't have thought he'd be capable of the self-control to sexually abuse her for this long without using her to get off himself, even though this was all in service to another one of his plans.

Lilith's imagination leapt to an image of Jack holding her head down against the table and forcing his cock down her throat.

Jack moved, and Lilith flinched. The thought had been so strong It took her another few seconds to realise he was moving away from her.

A pile of black and yellow clothing sat folded on one of the counters that lined the walls of the experimentation room. Jack brought them over and placed them next to Lilith's hip as he undid the bindings around her thighs and ankles.

Lilith took full advantage, stretching her legs out as he freed them. Her muscles were stiff from holding that pose for however long she had been strapped in.

Once both legs were free, Jack slid a pair of lacy black panties up them, followed by her skin-tight black leggings.

"You're going to be a good mama bird and keep all your eggs nestled safely inside, got it?" Jack asked.

Lilith nodded. She didn't think she could get them all out if she tried. The last one was flush against her cervix, deeper than even her fingers could reach.

The bindings on her wrists were released next. Lilith should have use her newly free hands to throttle Jack, but if the months she had spent as his prisoner had proved anything, it was that she didn't need to be restrained to be helpless.

She lifted her arms up and let Jack slide the corset around her torso. She usually relied on the fasteners at the front to make putting on the awful thing slightly less painful, but while she had been drugged someone had undone the laces at the back.

Just as she was wondering how she would get the damn thing tied up again, Jack took hold of the threads and started weaving them through the tiny holes.

"Nisha showed me how to do this. You like it nice and tight, right?"

Lilith nodded again, it was the easiest way to answer without risking punishment for being unresponsive.

Jack's fingers brushed over her shoulders and back as he worked. The loose fabric gathering around her with every pull of the threads.

Lilith hated moments like this. The times when Jack was gentle or treated her with even an ounce of respect. It made her feel like she had wanted this, or that she was enjoying it. That, somehow, despite the fact she had been kidnapped and was being held against her will, they were forming an emotional bond.

She hadn't spoken to anyone who wasn't Jack since her capture, (At least of you didn't count yelling over his shoulder while he was using the ECHO network) and it was taking a steep toll on her. Deciding to seek out Jack's affection or to cope with the isolation was as hopeless a choice as resisting or complying with his latest demand.

All her options would leave scars, it only changed what part of her mind or body suffered the damage.

Once Jack had threaded the last eyelet, he tied a bow over Lilith's lower back. Then he took hold of the two loops halfway down the crossed lattice of laces and tugged.

The corset tightened around Lilith's chest, it pushed her breasts up and clamped around her ribcage.

Like all young sirens, Lilith had a near perfect waistline, so the corset didn't risk breaking a rib, but it still constricted her breathing.

Jack tied off the threads in a second bow, finishing it off with a kiss to Lilith's right shoulder.

"We have somewhere we need to be. You can walk, or I can carry you," Jack said.

"I'll walk."

Lilith slid off the table, regretting her decision the moment she got to her feet. When she was laying still, she was almost able to ignore the eggs inside of her, but even small movements of her legs or hips made things shift about.

Jack watched her with all the friendly concern of a lion who had just spotted a wounded gazelle. He reached out and took her arm and Lilith grudgingly accepted the help.

"Where're you taking me?" Lilith asked.

"Uh, uh, uh, that would be spoiling the surprise," Jack chided her as he guided her out of the room and into a claustrophobic hallway. There weren't any windows, so it was impossible to tell if she was still on Helios.

Even with Jack's support, each step was difficult. The stones were so distracting that Lilith forgot how to move her feet. She huffed, channelling all her focus into putting one foot in front of the other as normally as she could.

"Don't get your feathers in a twist, we aren't going far," Jack said.

As they neared the end of the hallway, the facility started to feel less abandoned. They turned a corner, and halfway down the next hallway, a pair of double doors hung open, spilling warm yellow light and sounds of activity.

Jack pulled her into the room. The sudden change of atmosphere hitting Lilith like an unexpected punch to the gut.

It looked like she had just wandered into the film set of a moon landing re-enactment. Banks of computer monitors were lined up all over the room, the largest taking up almost all the surface area on the north wall.

Right now, most of the displays were showing the inside of a large Biodome full of plants native to Pandora.

The observation room was packed with more people in lab coats than Lilith had time to count. They all looked busy, and none of them even bothered to look up as she and Jack passed them.

One of the screens they walked by was displaying a 3D model of Lilith's naked body, with various points outlined in red and notated in a font that was too small to read from a distance.

A sudden realisation dawned on her. If these people were helping him run this experiment, then they must know what Jack had been doing to her just a few rooms away.

For all she knew, this hadn't originally been Jack's idea. Any of these people could have been the one who brainstormed and pitched it to him.

Anger flared like fire leaping up her throat. They were monsters, all of them. Treating her like an exotic specimen. Turning a blind eye while Jack violated her body. If she got half a chance, she would make them pay. She knew Jack didn't care if she roasted a few of his subordinates. They were infinitely replaceable.

They might refuse to look her in the eye, but Lilith took solace in knowing that no matter how smart they were, or how hard they worked, they would never be a fraction as valuable to their corporate overlord as she was.

An older man dressed in a knee length lab coat intercepted Jack and Lilith as they left the command centre through another set of double doors.

"Handsome Jack, sir. We're ready for subject introduction."

Lilith raised her head and shot the man a glare so fierce he stumbled backwards in shock. Bolstered by the reaction, Lilith growled, imitating the wild animal they were treating her as.

"Ohhh, look at you getting all feisty," Jack observed. He slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. "You might want to stand back. Her bite is twice as bad as her bark."

The man nodded and backed away, allowing the pair to continue into the adjoining room. This one was almost identical to the last, but instead of a gigantic monitor mounted on the north wall, there was an alcove separated from the rest of the room by a glass barrier.

Jack leant close to Lilith and whispered into her ear, "Just a little longer, sweetie. As soon as we can shut your collar off, those eggs are going to work their magic."

As they approached the glass barrier, it parted in the middle like a pair of automatic doors. It reminded Lilith strongly of the cell she had occupied for the first few months of her imprisonment, only this one didn't seem fit for long term occupation.

Jack led her inside, cupped her cheeks in both hands and pressed a tender kiss to her lips.

"Knock 'um dead, Lilly. I'll be watching you very closely."

With those parting words, he stepped back, and the sliding doors closed behind him. Lilith balled her fingers into fists. She ached to slam her hand against the glass, but knowing how cautious Jack could be, it was probably reinforced to withstand a small nuclear explosion.

The floor near her right ankle sparkled, and Lilith turned to see a digistruct eye built into the wall. Bit by bit it reassembled the atoms of a large yellow weapons chest. Lilith glanced from Jack to the chest, taking his smile as a warning to tread lightly.

She reached out and pressed the button on the front. The two sides of the chest swung open, revealing a submachine gun. It had the black, red, and gold highlights that Hyperion used only for it's highest quality munitions.

Lilith reached out and hefted it into her hands. The side of the gun's barrel had a small window that displayed a tank of vibrant red gel. Bullets fired from it would turn into ballistic fire-starters likely to engulf the victim in flames on contact. It was the perfect tool for a siren, especially her, to cause massive amounts of damage. If she had found this baby in a loot chest on Pandora, it would have been a cause for celebration.

Next to the gun was a small device about the same size and shape as a pistol holder. The strip of blue light up the side identified it as an inventory management and digistruct drive. Lilith checked the display and discovered that it was loaded with two thousand rounds of SMG ammunition.

Lilith fastened the waist strap of the device around her hips and the secondary strap around her upper thigh. She pulled the slide from the gun, finding that it was empty. She lowered her hand next to the device on her hip, and it constructed a fresh magazine into her palm.

She loaded it into the SMG, her heart leaping in her chest as it clicked into place. She had missed this; the feeling of cold metal in her hands, the rush of wielding a powerful instrument of death.

Jack wouldn't have dared give her this without the glass separating them. Lilith didn't know how he intended to take it away from her after this test, but she didn't plan on giving it up without a fight.

Lilith turned to look at Jack, but while she had been dealing with her new weapon, he had disappeared. Lilith bit her lip and turned to the blank wall in front of her. Now She had a sense what the experiment entailed, but not how she got into the arena.

Lilith wasn't sure what prompted her to look up, but when she did, she found that her little chamber didn't have a roof. An empty shaft stretched above her, and from the opening, she caught a glimpse of blue sky.

A vine hung over the edge of the hole and had probably been making slow but steady progress down for at least a few months.

The floor under Lilith shifted and started to rise. She planted her feet so she wouldn't stumble and toggled the safety catch on her SMG.

She crouched down as the elevator platform approached the edge of the shaft, using it as cover for as long as she could. She scanned her surroundings, but she couldn't find any hint of another living creature in the unkempt foliage.

Lilith knew exactly where she was; The wildlife exploitation preserve. It seemed all too fitting in hindsight. This is where Hyperion brought wild animals it captured to use for experimentation.

The arena inside the preserve had been nicknamed 'The Natural Selection Annex', and its primary purpose was hosting deathmatches between the various races of Pandorian predators for Hyperion upper management to bet on.

Lilith stepped off the elevator, keeping her gun at the ready.

"Hey, cupcake, can you hear me?

Lilith looked up at the sound of Jack's voice. It was being projected throughout the arena, though she couldn't see any speakers.

"-We're going to do this in rounds and waves, just like you're used to. We'll start off easy then crank it up until I run out of troops, or you pass out."

Lilith nodded, clutching her SMG a little tighter. She had fought in arenas before, but this time she didn't have a shield, grenades, or even another weapon to switch to.

A robotic female voice echoed through the speakers and announced, "Deploying disruptor field in 3… 2… 1..."

The blue sky above Lilith's head suddenly turned a dark purple. It was translucent enough to let most of the light through, but the colour cast dark shadows on the trees and bushes, turning the shade into dark hiding spots that a predator could use to its advantage.

"The force field will prevent you from teleporting out of the arena. So save your strength for killing."

As soon as Jack finished talking, the collar around Lilith's neck beeped and shut down. This time she knew to brace herself for the sudden return of her powers. The energy from the other dimension soaked into her, fanning her flames from smouldering coals back into a roaring inferno. Her wings opened up, basking her shoulders in radiant heat.

The only feeling that didn't return was her sense of how every single point in the universe was intrinsically linked. Even without Jack's warning, she could feel the weight of the barrier around the arena pressing down on her like a thick wool blanket. She wasn't truly off her leash this time, she had only been let out into the back garden to play.

A buzzer went off, and at the far end of the arena a huge sliding door rolled up and open. Two full platoons of Hyperion combat engineers rushed out, flanked by three dozen loader bots and two constructor units.

Lilith held up her SMG, but she didn't curl her finger around the trigger. She didn't have to do this. As much as she loved laying waste to anything with a Hyperion brand, fighting and killing them would also mean giving Jack the data he needed to call this test a success. Whosever idea stuffing her full of stone eggs had been, they would be satisfied.

The combat engineers formed a line in front of her and raised their weapons. Lilith had a second to wonder if they would shoot first before a bullet pierced her chest.

A hail of gunfire ripped through her. Shots caught her chest, stomach and right arm before she crumpled face first into the dirt. Most stopped firing after she fell, but a few did not. Soil and grass went flying, and more bullets buried themselves in Lilith's arm and shoulders.

At last, even the most trigger-happy of the lot ceased fire. A moment of silence passed over the preserve. A few of the engineers shared frightened looks. They had only been following orders, but they had also just killed Jack's precious pet siren.

An engineer near the end of the firing line was the first to notice the purple glow shining off Lilith's pale skin. He raised his gun, only to drop it a second later as he watched Lilith get to her feet. From there she rose into the air, lifted by her fiery wings. Bullets that had lodged in her body fell to the grass, expelled as her healing powers kicked into high gear.

"Oh shit, I think you made her angry!" Jack cackled through the speakers. "Birdy, do your master proud and kill them!"

Lilith barely felt the weight of the gun in her hand as she brought it around. The Eridium inside her was doing its job, like pouring gas on an open flame. The rush was unlike any Eridium high she had experienced before. She felt as if she could crack the whole planet in two Is she willed it.

Lilith caught the eye of the man who had dropped his gun. She raised a hand, and with a flick of her fingers he spontaneously combusted, showering the man next to him in burning chunks.

Lilith laughed, the rush of blood in her ears was too loud for her to hear how much it sounded like one of Handsome Jack's cackles.

The other engineers retaliated with gunfire, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off Lilith's skin.

Lilith was vaguely aware that something was wrong with her thought patterns. She wasn't thinking in words anymore. There was no voice debating courses of action, or trying to guess what those around her might be planning; only unfiltered urges that roared for revenge. She was so much more powerful than her opponents, and she was going to rip them apart piece by piece.

Lilith touched back down to the grass, setting it alight. The flames spread to the nearby bushes and trees, sending pillars of black smoke up towards the purple-tinted sky.

* * *

 

Lilith lay on her back in a pile of smouldering ash. Many of the trees that had surrounded her still stood, but only as charred shadows of their former selves. Out near the edges of the arena the forest fire still burned, eating its way through the very last of the fuel.

Every part of Lilith's body ached. Yet, the clawing need for stimulus hadn't abated. Exhaustion had won out at the moment, but she was still ready to leap to her feet the second she heard the buzzer that would announce the next wave.

It seemed to be taking Jack longer than normal. Lilith hadn't been counting, but she must have killed at least two hundred of his troops, excluding the robots. If he was still digging for more, it might be a while.

Footsteps came from somewhere behind Lilith's head. She twisted around and stood, pointing her gun in the direction of the noise.

She had expected another Hyperion soldier. Instead, her eyes met the mismatched blue and green gaze of the man who pulled the strings. Lilith hammered the trigger on her gun, but all that came from it was a series of hollow clicks.

Lilith tossed it to the ground in disgust. The collar around her neck beeped as it activated and the flicker of flames hovering around her shoulders fizzled out.

Surprisingly, the effects of the Eridium dose didn't fade with her powers. Lilith felt like she was floating, and the world around her was distorted and dulled. She was still angry, she still hated Jack with every fibre of her being, but the pain that came with those emotions didn't consume her like it usually did. She just wanted to feel things. All feelings were good feelings, and it was never enough.

"You really think I would let you kill me with one of my own guns?" Jack asked with a smirk.

"Eh, you can't blame a girl for trying."

"Ohhh, yes I can."

Each of Jack's steps towards her came with a satisfying crunch of burned leaves. Lilith found the sound oddly satisfying. Like she was watching a nature documentary of a predator crashing through the underbrush.

"-but since I'm so very proud of you right now, I'll overlook it."

As soon as she was close enough, Jack scooped her into his arms. The usual prickle of disgust that Lilith felt whenever he touched her was completely absent. The parts of her that were in contact with him felt warmer then the rest of her body as if his presence was a warm bath she wanted to sink herself into.

"What's it like having all that Eridium flooding through you?" Jack asked.

Lilith could tell from his tone that this wasn't an idle question. She took a moment to consider how to put it into words.

"Amazing. Like being a god. I could kill you without even having to think about it."

"Mmmhm… Obviously, that's not true. You might have control over your powers, but I have the technology to control you."

Lilith blinked back at him. She didn't have anything to say to that. Today she had discovered heights of her powers that she hadn't even considered, but it had all been ripped away from her as soon as Jack decided playtime was over.

Thinking about this was making her feel like shit. The side effects of the Eridium had finally taken away the crushing pressure of depression that had turned her life into a waking nightmare, and she would do anything to make it last just a little longer.

Lilith crossed her arms around Jack's shoulders and pressed their lips together. Jack tensed, but Lilith pretended not to notice and pressed closer until Jack placed a hand on her chest and shoved her away.

Lilith glared at him, her chest rising and falling with slow breaths. She wasn't angry. She wouldn't let herself be angry. She couldn't live with herself knowing she had been pissed off that Jack had rejected her.

"You look like absolute shit, babe. Let's get you cleaned up," Jack insisted. He took her by the wrist and lead her back to the elevator that had deposited her into the arena.

* * *

 

Jack hadn't been exaggerating. Lilith was covered from head to foot in a mix of blood and ashes, her leggings were torn to shit, (much like her old pair had been after years of hiding from Hyperion) and she had managed to break a few of the ribs in her corset.

She kneeled on the marble countertop, holding her hair up as Jack unlaced her. In front of her was a wall sized mirror that reflected the gigantic bathroom, from the pool sized bathtub in one corner to the double rain shower behind a panel of yellow glass.

The corset came off, and the painful pressure of sharp ends poking into Lilith's chest disappeared with it. Dimly, Lilith realised that it had been excruciatingly painful and that her Eridium high must be dulling both physical and emotional discomfort.

Jack tapped her shoulder, and she turned around, offering her legs so he could pull the rest of her clothing off.

"You know there were cameras all over that arena," Jack said as he pulled on the hem of her leggings. "I don't mind a little exhibitionism, but I also don't like sharing my toys."

The crotch of Lilith's leggings was soaked through, along with the panties underneath. Jack glanced down at his fingers, noticing a purple residue on them. He bit his lip and hooked a finger under the waistband of Lilith's panties.

"I have to see what this looks like…" Jack murmured.

Lilith was curious as well, and as soon as they were off, she propped her feet against the countertop and spread her legs. Most of the Eridium had been absorbed into her body, but some remained in a liquid form.

Jack's eyes widened so far that Lilith was surprised his mask didn't come dislodged.

"Ho-holy shit," Jack cackled, "That is so-" he trailed off, the scorn in his eyes waning as he took in how the purple goo dripped from Lilith's lower lips and pooled on the counter under her.

"Hhng… nope, I still want to stick my dick in there," Jack admitted. "Luckily Eridium is safe for us mere mortals to touch…"

Jack sunk two fingers into her, coating them in the purple goo in the process. Lilith leant back against the glass, she had been half-heartedly hoping that her heightened sensitivity to touch would extend between her legs, and so far, it totally did.

But instead of thrusting in and out like she wanted, Jack seemed to be feeling around inside of her.

"Are there any eggs left?" Jack asked, seconds before his fingertip prodded something hard. "Oh, there's one!"

Jack pulled his fingers back and spread her open with them.

"Lay your last one, little bird. I'll catch it."

Lilith couldn't even look at him. It was so well nestled inside her that she hadn't even felt that there was any left. She flexed her inner muscles, feeling the resistance of the polished stone as she pushed against it.

It popped out and fell into Jack's hand covered in liquid Eridium. To Lilith's surprise, a tingle of satisfaction overtook her as soon as it was out. She had been too stressed out to enjoy it at the time, but thinking back to when she was filled was enough to make her squirm.

"Hunh, whaddya know? Looks like this one wasn't made of Eridium at all."

Jack held the egg up for Lilith, and she saw what he meant. The stone egg was purple, but it didn't glow in the typical fashion or radiate with ambient energy.

Jack pinched the base of the egg and rubbed the narrow tip against the folds hiding Lilith's clit.

"I guess you only really needed four, but I'm sure you enjoyed being stuffed full."

Lilith's fingers tightened around the lip of the counter. Her anger sobered her up like long intakes of cold air, but all she wanted was to keep drowning.

Lilith pushed his wrist away from her and slipped off the counter, landing in a crouch at Jack's feet.

Reminding herself firmly to not think about what she was doing, Lilith popped his belt open and unzipped the front of his pants.

A loud crack echoed around the bathroom. Small fragments of shattered purple egg skittered across the tiles, one of the shards ricocheted off Lilith's knee. Jack swore but only managed to get about halfway through the word before Lilith wrapped her lips around him.

She was woefully out of practice, but she also figured after toying with her all day, anything warm and wet would be enough to distract him.

Lilith bobbed her head, slowly at first, so she could get used to the awkward feeling of holding her mouth slightly open and the weight on her tongue. Fingers threaded through her hair, but he didn't pull on the strands or try to force her to take more. It seemed even Handsome Jack had to think twice about irritating a formidable siren with a vulnerable part of his body in her mouth.

Lilith tried using her tongue as much as possible and kept an even pace, but between the Eridium and her refusal to acknowledge what she was doing, she was struggling to keep focus. The tip of Jack's cock hit something in the back of her throat, and Lilith had to pull back. She coughed and swallowed hard, fighting her gag reflex.

Jack cackled and tightened his grip on her hair. "What's the matter, pumpkin, didn't your stud of a boyfriend ever choke you with his dick?"

Lilith stared down at the bathroom tiles. Receiving oral had never been something Roland was that into. He usually gave a pass on anything that couldn't be done while holding her in his arms.

"Tch, get up babe. You're just embarrassing yourself."

Jack grabbed Lilith under one arm and pulled her to her feet. Lilith couldn't pretend she didn't feel the pang of rejection this time. It didn't make any sense. Why did she care that the man who had raped and abused her wasn't impressed with her blowjob abilities?

Jack led her over to the tub and released her wrists. Lilith shifted her weight onto her heels, watching as he bent over and opened the taps above the tub.

The tub was built right up against the wall and had a hip-high platform of golden tiles around it. Both ends of the tub had sloped backrests that were studded with water jets.

It struck Lilith as a perfectly generic porn setting. She was the strung out hot chick, and Jack was the rich asshole who would keep her in designer drugs and handbags in exchange for fulfilling his perverse fantasies.

She could just imagine that she was sitting on her sofa in Frostburn Canyon watching this all play out on her computer screen while passing another night alone.

The water was filling up incredibly fast considering how large the tub was. Presumably, Jack got preferential treatment when it came to water pressure on the space station.

"Y'know, while we're waiting, I could use a little help..." Jack said.

Lilith nodded and stepped closer to him, keeping her eyes down as she began to unfold the rolled-up sleeves of his overcoat.

Lilith had learned the hard way not to rush through this task. Jack was strangely protective of parts of his wardrobe, particularly the faded and patched yellow sweater.

As far as Lilith knew, it was the exact same one he had been wearing when they first met. It clearly meant something to him, but she didn't really care enough to ask herself what it might be.

First, the grey jacket came off, followed by the leather vest, the white collared shirt and finally the mysterious sweater. Lilith folded them as she removed them and placed them on the floor beside the tub.

She had already done half the work to get his bottoms off. While she was finishing the job, Lilith found herself wondering who Jack thought he was kidding trying to pull off pants that tight.

Lilith set the last of Jack's clothes on top of the pile. As she straightened up, a hand closed around her collar and she was shoved down on top of the tile platform around the tub. Lilith grasped the rim for support and pulled her legs up so the sharp edge wouldn't dig into her hips.

The steam coming up from the water heated Lilith's skin and sent a shiver through her. Her muscles ached after her battle in the preserve and a nice long soak would feel like heaven.

Jack grabbed her hips and pulled them up so he could admire both her ass and the spot between her legs.

"I'm still not over this," Jack said, tracing his fingers through the purple goo that dripped out of her. "It looks like you got gang-banged by a flock of guardians."

Lilith took a deep breath, but it only turned her angry snap into sarcasm.

"Maybe I should go find some? It's probably faster than waiting for you to decide whether or not you're going to fuck me."

Jack clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

"You really don't have any patience, do you, birdy? Or has all the attention I've been giving you turned you into an even bigger slut?"

Jack grabbed her by the hips and shoved her into the tub.

Lilith only heard half the splash before the hot water closed over her head. She sat up, gasping from the shock more than the water. She brushed her wet bangs out of her eyes. The water level was up past her shoulders when she was sitting on the bottom of the tub.

Not sparing a glance at Jack, she moved over to one of the slanted edges and settled herself against the backrest, her knees pressed against her chest.

She felt the water shift as Jack followed her in. He sat at the far end, his arms stretched out and resting on the back end of the tub. He snapped his fingers and whistled at her, one of his many ways of calling his pet bird to his side.

Lilith reluctantly obeyed. Moving along the bottom of the tub until she was close enough to take the hand Jack was offering to her. He pulled her into his lap then turned her around, so she was laying with her back against his chest.

Lilith had gotten used to sleeping with Jack's arms around her, so the new position didn't make her as uncomfortable as it should have.

"Still feeling that Eridium high, babe?" Jack asked. One of his arms crossed over her hips while the other hand started massaging her breasts, paying special attention to her nipples.

"Mmmmm… a little," Lilith replied. she closed her eyes. The heat from the water had soaked into her skin enough to start soothing her sore muscles.

"As far as I know you're the only siren who reacts to Eridium like that. You drink it up like you were born for it and the only side effect is getting stoned off your tits."

Lilith rested her head against his shoulder, he sounded like he was set on rambling for the next little while. She subtlety moved her hand from the side of the tub to her thigh, and then between her legs. She rubbed her fingertips over the folds hiding her clit. The resulting sparks of pleasure easing the ache in her lower tummy.

"And Just think, If I hadn't sent you to open that vault, you would never have discovered your true potential. It's so funny how it all just works out, especially for me."

Lilith bit the inside of her cheek. If there were any kind of justice in the universe, it would have given her the strength to drown him in this bathtub.

"-and how lucky are you to be on the right side of history this time? I was so sure you'd end up as a minor footnote in my story. Another bandit crushed in the cleansing of Newhaven. I'd even picked out how you were going to be depicted in my museum, I'll show you the concept art later. We gave you an eyepatch and drew your hair like you'd just stuck your tongue in a toaster."

Lilith had managed to completely check out at this point. She had switched to using both hands, focusing on teasing her clit with one set of fingers while teasing and rubbing her entrance with the other.

"It took The Warrior blowing up in my face to make me see the real Eridian superweapon was hiding under my nose this whole time…"

Lilith let out a low moan that sounded just enough like 'mhhum' to encourage Jack to keep rambling.

"You killed some of my best soldiers today. Those troops helped me trash Newhaven, made a nice job of it too, but you wiped them out without even trying. If you keep performing like this, it won't be long until we can cleanse this planet in fire and lay the groundwork for-"

Jack cut himself off and fell silent. Lilith opened her eyes and blinked lazily up at him, notably failing to curtail her ministrations below the water's surface.

"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're just getting off on my incredibly sexy voice," Jack muttered.

He shoved her up against the side of the tub, sending a wave of water over the edge in the process.

Lilith gasped, filling her lungs after the air had been knocked from her. Jack pulled her further up until she was bent over the edge of the tub, with her hips above the water. Lilith felt a hand close around the back of her throat. She stilled, knowing from experience what came next.

Jack entered her with a firm thrust that made Lilith instinctually part her legs to give him better access.

"Desperation isn't a good look for you, Lily. But then, I suppose the squeaky wheels do get all the grease, don't they?"

Lilith nodded, her fingers closing over the edge of the tub platform to support her upper body. Water dripped from her hair into the spreading puddle on the floor. Judging from the rough pace he was setting, Jack didn't care how much of the contents of the tub ended up on the floor.

Lilith dropped her shoulders, she had been halfway to her peak when Jack had interrupted her, but getting herself off using only her fingers was frustratingly tricky business at the best of times.

Her mind began to wander, the physical pleasure bringing back the purple haze that had clouded her mind back in the arena.

Lilith had been in enough battles to know that hadn't been one. The only word to describe that was 'slaughter'. Months of compounding anger and hatred had come pouring out of her, taking form as an unyielding inferno.

She should have given them some mercy, they'd been forced to fight her just like she'd been forced to fight them. They all probably had loved ones and were just trying to survive in a system that valued profit over human happiness… but on the other hand, fuck it and fuck them, because at least when they complained about being raped by Handsome Jack, it was metaphorical. She'd taken out every scar Jack had given her one after another as they screamed and burned, and damn, it had felt so good.

A full-body shiver ran through her, the memories of her Eridium fuelled rampage complimenting the twist of pain-mixed pleasure that came with each thrust.

After months of muffled orgasms, Lilith managed to startle Jack to the point of letting go of her neck with her moan. Jack laughed it off, though Lilith hardly heard him as her toes curled against the side of the tub.

Lilith came down softer than usual, instead of the post-orgasm guilt that hit like a bucket of ice water, she just felt floaty and relaxed.

Jack wasn't finished yet, so Lilith went limp against the tub and let her eyes fall shut.

Jack paused mid thrust, adjusting, so he was settled deep inside her. Lilith tightened around him, hypersensitive from her recent orgasm.

He grabbed Lilith's shoulders with both hands, pulling her away from the edge of the tub and back into the water, their bodies still connected.

Lilith looked up and just had enough time to catch the sadistic grin on his lips before he dunked her underneath the surface.

Lilith's shoulders hit the bottom of the tub. She tried to sit up, but Jack kept his arms locked in place pinning her under the water. The attack had come so quickly that it took a moment for the panic to set in. Lilith tried to twist free, but she couldn't push him off with the weight of the water pressing down on her.

Lilith dug her fingernails into Jack's wrists, but no matter how hard she pressed his grip didn't falter. No doubt that strategy had stopped working on Jack after the second or third time he had strangled someone to death.

Fighting was getting her nowhere. Every second Lilith was under the water the pressure to release the breath she was holding mounted. along with the pain in her chest, but the instinct to keep the water out of her lungs was strong, and Lilith kept holding long past what she could have imagined was her limit.

Each second crawled by as the pain turned to agony. Spreading out from her chest to every part of her body. Dark shadows began to cloud her vision, further distorting the man above her through the reflective surface of the water.

She wouldn't last much longer before passing out. Thirty more seconds at most.

Lilith hit a breaking point. A burst of silver bubbles erupted from her lips and sped up towards the light. Water rushed in to fill her mouth and throat, then spilled further into her lungs.

The fingers around her shoulders tightened, and Lilith was dragged back to the surface. She tried to gasp for air, but the water in her lungs wouldn't allow it.

She collapsed against the side of the tub water pouring from her lips. With a massive heave of her chest, she spat up another mouth full.

At last, she took an unobstructed breath and oxygen rushed in. She clutched the side of the tub, trembling and shaking as she hyperventilated.

Somehow, Lilith found the strength to pull herself out of the tub and onto the floor. She landed on her hands and knees in the massive puddle that stretched across most of the floor.

Lilith wasn't sure what prompted her to look, maybe her subconscious mind had already figured out why Jack had tried to drown her and was calling attention to it, but when she rolled over and glanced down, she could see the mix of milky white in the purple Eridium between her legs.

Jack propped his elbows up on the side of the tub, watching her with mild amusement.

"Where do you think you're going, babe?"

Lilith's fingers tightened into fists against the tiles, but the spark flickered out as quickly as it had come. She staggered back up onto her feet, careful not to slip on the wet tiles.

At least she knew that he was satisfied and that the next attack wouldn't come for a while, not unless she provoked him.

Jack offered her his hand and eased her back into the tub. She sunk back into the water and allowed herself to be pulled into his arms. Jack threaded his fingers through her damp hair. Lilith sunk into the water almost up to her eyes so it would be impossible for Jack to notice if she started crying.


End file.
